Deadly Stuff (5 page)

Jenny grinned. ‘Now pause and take a deep, calming breath.’

James did so, and rolled his eyes, then looked down at the lizard, which seemed to be contemplating a small nail head that was protruding slightly from one of the tables. ‘I swear that he should be called Houdini, rather than Norman, but that was Gracie’s choice.’

‘Gracie being your niece?’

‘Right.’

Jenny glanced down at the chameleon, which froze in the act of slowly putting one clawed foot in front of the other. Aware that he was the focus of attention, both of his bulbous eyes looked up at them. If he could have spoken, clearly he would have asked them just what they thought they were staring at.

He was that sort of a lizard.

‘I rather like Norman,’ Jenny said.

The chameleon delicately put one foot down in front of the other.

‘So do I, but I’d better get him back to his tank. I won’t be a tick.’ He carefully scooped up the reptile and headed quickly for the exit, casting a look to the front of the room as he did so.

Jenny saw that Maurice had now manoeuvred the crate into place, and had placed a large cloth over the front of it and was busily removing one side of the crate in order to facilitate a no-doubt spectacular ‘show’ at some point during his speech.

Which he now seemed ready to deliver.

Prepared to be entertained, Jenny settled her well-padded shoulder more comfortably against the wall, and waited to be amused.

Simon Jenks saw the motorway turn off sign for Oxford and indicated in plenty of time. He glanced nervously at the petrol tank though, and hoped that he’d have enough fuel to incorporate this detour on his trip down to Hayling Island without having to top up just yet. The cost of petrol nowadays was enough to bring him out in a cold sweat, but he knew that once
he’d teamed up with Laura, he could persuade her to use his car during their little holiday, even though she would probably prefer to use her top-of-the-range BMW. Then, at the nearest petrol station, he could find his wallet low on cash, and she’d be quick to offer him the use of her credit card.

One of the many things that Simon liked about Laura was her generosity with plastic. Not that he was a total sponger, he thought hastily, but business was tight these days. The double, or was it treble-dip, recession was hitting him hard along with everyone else and besides, the little jaunt to the coast was all her idea, after all. It was only fair that she pay for the bulk of it.

He glanced at the large green plastic bag beside him on the passenger seat, which bore the logo of a prestigious store in Harrogate, and smiled. Besides, he’d already splashed out on what she’d asked him to bring – namely, one baby-doll nightie in a delicate shade of peach, a bottle of champers, and some Belgian chocolates, which she’d promised to make melt down in a most interesting way.

Simon glanced at his watch, a Rolex from his glory days before the divorce had stripped him clean, and saw that it was just gone quarter past ten. He hoped that he wouldn’t be late. Laura’s text message had been a bit cryptic, to say the least, but the actual instructions on where to go had been easy to follow.

Simon, as a freelance photographer, had been to most places in the UK and abroad too, in those heady and carefree days straight out of school when travel was cheap, and Oxford was no exception, but it had been years since he’d last visited the famous university city. If he remembered rightly, it had been to take a selection of photographs so that the makers of a ‘Beautiful Britain Calendar’ could select one for their March spot. It had been one of the colleges they’d chosen but not, he thought, St Bede’s. Had it been the quads at Wadham College, or the famously friendly grey squirrels in the gardens at Worcester College?

Simon gave a mental shrug, and felt a pang of nostalgia for the days when the commissions had seemed to stream in. Just lately, though, they had been drying up. When money was tight, companies tended to cut the expensive little extras first. So lush brochures full of photographs had become a thing of the past. Since they were his bread-and-butter he’d recently been forced to try and break into the magazine market, which was already fiercely competitive.

To make matters worse, he’d come out badly in his divorce, he’d just celebrated his thirty-eighth birthday, and suddenly life had begun to look just a shade grim. At five feet ten, with dark-brown, nearly-black hair and large brown eyes, Simon had always known he was attractive to women. But somehow, here he was, facing middle-age, in a rented flat, a car coming up to ten years old, and a business that barely paid the bills.

No wonder he’d been feeling just a shade vulnerable and shaky when he’d met Laura Raines. She’d been dashing into a hotel restaurant to get out of the Yorkshire rain, and he’d just finished having lunch with the owner of a gallery that he’d been trying to persuade to show some of his artwork.

Simon took a long, slow breath and checked the progress of a large lorry hurtling up behind him. He moved over to let the juggernaut pass, and his thoughts turned once again to the new woman in his life.

Laura, it was clear, still thought of him as young. She looked at him and saw a good-looking man, a desirable man, a catch. She had soothed his ego without even trying, and taken away a good portion of his nervousness about the future, and for that, he was genuinely fond of her.

She truly didn’t look her age, and Simon had been only too pleased to take up the invitation in her eyes on that day when they’d first met.

It hadn’t taken him long to discover the lay of the land, of course. And an older woman with an expensive car, good
clothes, and bling actually worth wearing was definitely worth getting to know. Her marriage had been an empty sham for years, and now that her boys were grown, she wanted out. The money was hers, he’d been relieved to learn, and Simon had no doubt that a rosy future awaited both of them.

He just had to play his cards right, that was all.

And that, he fully intended to do.

Simon Jenks eased his foot off the pedal, and approached a large roundabout that would take him towards the centre of the city. He glanced again at his watch.

No, he was all right. He still had plenty of time.

‘
A
nd thus we come to this fine specimen,’ Maurice Raines said, with just a touch of bravura. He’d been speaking for only five minutes, and Jenny had to admit that he spoke well. He was both clear, and had an obviously genuine enthusiasm for his topic, and now, along with everyone else, she leaned forward just a little from her position propping up the wall as he whipped aside the cloth covering the large crate beside him.

There was an appreciative murmur among the crowd. Jenny found herself looking at a black, or very dark brown, medium sized bear, with a white fur collar and bib. It was stood on all fours, and seemed to be snarling at the audience.

‘Those closest to it might be in the best position to guess the approximate age of this fine specimen.’ Maurice smiled and then paused and nodded as someone close to high table called out that it was done sometime in the 1920s. ‘Close, Phillip, 1931 to be exact.’

He went on to describe the taxidermist, a fairly well-known American practitioner of the art apparently, and within another five minutes he was obviously drawing his opening speech to a close, as he wished everyone a successful and interesting few days.

A couple in the back row applauded loudly, and Jenny was amused to overhear the husband say to the wife, ‘That’s got to be one of Maurice’s shortest speeches ever.’ And his wife shot back, ‘I know, that’s why it was so good!’

But Maurice wasn’t quite finished yet. He held up his hands for silence and got it instantly.

‘If everyone who hasn’t rented table space this year could make their way straight to lectures or demos, it’ll give the ones who have tables to set up a chance to get started. And for all of those, there’s a free early lunch provided for you in the JCR, and will be available from eleven thirty to twelve thirty. I know you’ll all want to be ready and raring to go by two o’clock, when we have our first free period. OK, that’s all, folks.’

There was a general scramble as people obligingly picked up their chairs, folded them and started stacking them neatly around the walls. Jenny noticed that some of the scouts who’d served breakfast suddenly appeared to give a hand setting the tables back up. Several people began to lug in boxes and bags, and began setting out their wares.

Some, she saw, were selling samples of their work, and she paused to admire a scene wherein a barn owl was about to snatch a vole from a tuft of grass. The famously silent feathers on the bird were exquisite, she thought.

Others were setting out the tools of their trade and, as these began to appear in artfully arranged displays, Jenny couldn’t resist wandering around, her mind sometimes boggling. She moved on from ranges of safety glasses, where she was told by the vendor that the solutions to clean and preserve hides could be dangerous if they got into the eyes, and then paused, intrigued by a stall that seemed to be selling nothing but plastic buckets, bowls and measuring cups. Here she was told, again by the helpful vendor when he realized that she was attached to the college and a novice when it came to taxidermy, that they were all used in the process of tanning.

Another stall looked as if a needleworker or someone in the needlecraft trade had wandered in by mistake, for she was selling needles, thread, glue, something called monofilament fishing line and even dental floss. Jenny didn’t need to be told why someone would need these – obviously they were all used to sew up hide. Another stall was selling something called caulk, hot glue and superglue, needed, or so some of the signage said, for ‘perfect mounting’.

She paused by a stall that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a painter’s studio, since it consisted mostly of oil painting kits, airbrushes, turps, linseed oil, and something called benzine hard oil finish, or white varnishing. Jenny had no idea what these might be used for and was still puzzling over it, when she felt someone come up and stand beside her.

‘What the hell would you want all this stuff for?’ an amused male voice demanded, and Jenny turned to see a young red-haired man with a camera slung around his neck, staring down at the wares on display. He was probably only just out of his teens, and had an extremely freckled face, with small, close-together blue eyes.

‘No idea,’ Jenny admitted wryly.

‘Oh, you’re not a taxidermist then?’

‘No, just the cook.’

He grinned and made a show of putting away his notebook. ‘No point in interviewing you then?’ He gave a mock woebegone sigh.

‘Not unless your readers are interested in how to create a perfect Oxford herb omelette,’ Jenny agreed. ‘You must be the reporter that Maurice Raines hired to cover the conference?’

‘For my sins,’ the young man said, thrusting out his hand. ‘Charles Foster. Well, Charlie, really.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Charlie,’ Jenny said, taking his equally freckle-covered hand and shaking it firmly. ‘Jenny Starling.’

Having covered that, they both gave the painting outfits
another bemused look, and slowly wandered off to the next stall. Here Jenny felt her breath slowly hiss out as she surveyed a few of the more alarming-looking bottles that contained ominous labels such as arsenious acid and muriatic acid. Shellac, bicarb of soda, white glue and cotton batting didn’t seem so dangerous, nor did the long-fibre hemp tow (whatever the hell that was), the fine flax tow and the sponges.

‘Is arsenious acid something to do with arsenic?’ Charlie Foster said, giving a low whistle through his teeth. ‘I keep thinking I’ve wandered into one of those murder mystery weekends by mistake.’

Jenny, who’d had plenty of previous experience with murder, tried to shake off a nasty feeling of
déjà vu
and shrugged. ‘Can’t be. I mean, why would you need arsenic to stuff an animal?’

‘Why would you need a paint kit?’ Charlie grinned and shot back.

‘It’s for fish,’ someone said helpfully as they hurried past carrying a large and heavy-looking cardboard box.

‘Oh. That explains it, then,’ Charlie said, and cocked a quizzical orange eyebrow at Jenny. ‘Right?’

‘Oh definitely,’ Jenny agreed. And then had a weird mental image of somebody painting a stuffed fish. Not painting a picture of a stuffed fish, but actually painting a stuffed fish.

‘Is this place beginning to give you the creeps?’ Charlie asked, nodding towards yet another table that seemed to sell nothing but knives, scissors, scalpels, and all things pointy and lethal looking. ‘It says here that they’re all fleshing tools,’ he said, reading a little placard on front of the table. ‘Finest quality steel apparently,’ and then gave a theatrical shudder. He wasn’t tall, but he was incredibly thin and bony, and Jenny was instantly assailed by the urge to feed him up.

‘I think it’s time I headed back down to the kitchen. Have you eaten?’ she asked.

‘Huh?’ Charlie said, hastily withdrawing his hand as his
fingers had been about to pick up a particularly nasty hooked instrument that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Spanish Inquisition workshop. ‘Have you seen the prices of some of these things? And yeah, I’ve had breakfast, thanks.’

Jenny supposed, gloomily, that it had been a bowl of corn-flakes or, even worse, a pop tart, but didn’t push it.

‘So what do you think of our Maurice then?’ he asked, following her slowly out of the room. ‘Thinks a lot of himself, if you ask me.’ At the doorway, they had to pause and wait to let two older men, who were carrying in a heavy box between them, to pass.

‘You going down to have some of this free nosh in the JCR then?’ one of the passing men asked his companion, and the other laughed.

‘Too right I am. It’s not like old Maurice to be so generous and offer free grub to us peasants. I reckon we’re all going down just so that we can tell ‘em back home that he put his hands in his pockets for once.’

‘It was probably Vicki’s idea. She’s the treasurer, after all, so I suppose she gets to spend the budget how she likes.’

‘Makes sense. I’ll have to stand her a drink tonight. Oh, sorry love, did I catch you with that?’ The man turned to Jenny who’d just stepped smartly back to avoid having her shins caught on one corner of the box.

‘No, you’re fine,’ she said cheerfully, and glanced at her watch. It was still only a quarter to eleven. And since lunch wasn’t provided for the conference-goers she had several hours to kill before she needed to get down to the kitchen to start overseeing the evening meal.

‘I wonder who’s catering to this lot in the JCR,’ she said to Charlie with a suddenly worried frown. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be me.’ At least, neither the bursar nor Art McIntyre had mentioned it, and surely they would have?

‘Oh it’ll be bar snacks provided by the regular scouts, I
expect,’ Charlie said dismissively. ‘I can’t see Maurice letting anyone go overboard on the eats. You’ve met him, haven’t you?’ He tried to draw her out again with an engaging grin.

Jenny, realising the young man was desperate to get something for his article, smiled wryly. ‘Well, he’s certainly a personality,’ she admitted cautiously.

Charlie Foster grinned. ‘Yeah, that’s one word for him, all right.’

Jenny smiled. ‘And I had the impression he likes to get his own way.’

‘Same here.’

‘He seems very popular with the ladies,’ Jenny added deadpan.

Charlie rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t I know it. I’ve been asking around about our host, ever since I met him yesterday, and I get the distinct impression that he’s a bit of a tom cat. Apparently, he was a bit of a lad when younger. I’ve had my ear bent by several people telling me what he was like in his younger days and how the ladies of his home town weren’t safe. Mind you, I looked him up on the internet, and he was born and grew up in someplace called Wither Sedgewick, which is only a small market town up in the Yorkshire Dales somewhere, so I hardly think that qualifies him as a Don Juan.’

‘I thought I heard someone say he lives in Harrogate nowadays,’ Jenny said helpfully. ‘So perhaps you need to dig for the dirt there.’

Charlie had the grace to blush. ‘Sorry. But I can’t seem to get enthusiastic about stuffed hedgehogs,’ he said, nodding to a table and a case where the cute mammals were displayed in all their prickly glory.

‘It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it,’ Jenny said, in a fairly good Humphrey Bogart accent, and laid a comforting hand on the young man’s shoulder.

‘See, that’s all the sympathy I get,’ Charlie said, but rolled
his eyes and followed her down the corridor. ‘I’m going to find me a demonstration and take some photos, the more gruesome the better,’ he threatened, waving his camera in the air. ‘The editors love a bit of blood and gore.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ Jenny said cheerfully and, waving the young man goodbye, headed back to her room.

In the back of her mind, however, lingered the image of a bottle of acid.

Jenny couldn’t settle. Her room was in an older part of the college and, since parts of it dated back to the time when Christopher Columbus was a boy, that was pretty damn old, but for once the lure of history being all around her failed to intrigue. She went to her diamond-shaped lead-paned windows and threw them open, looking down through fronds of pale-lilac wisteria at the ancient quad below. Mellow Cotswold stone and lawns so velvety green that they looked like the finest baize gazed back at her.

She saw a gardener dead-heading some shrubs and breathed in deeply of the sunny warm air. What she needed, she told herself firmly, was a walk around the grounds, perhaps even around the town. She grabbed her handbag, glanced at her watch, saw that it was still wasn’t quite noon, and wondered if she could find a decent place to grab a bite of lunch.

Her route out took her back past hall, and it was perhaps the unexpected silence of the place that made her stop beside the wide open entrance. Of course, everybody must be down in the JCR by now she realized, after she’d thought it through for a moment. She saw that most of the tables had been fully set up now, with only a few left that needed some finishing touches. She looked around, expecting to see at least someone standing guard, but the room felt oddly empty.

Weren’t they worried about thieves? Jenny considered it for a moment. Presumably there were always scouts about. And
also, presumably, the porter at the gatehouse didn’t let anyone in who hadn’t business being in the college in the first place.

But wasn’t it open to the public?

She hesitated and then stepped further into the hall. ‘Hello?’ she called softly. But not even the resident college ghost – some emeritus fellow back in the 1880s who’d died in his rooms and remained undiscovered for two whole terms, apparently – bothered to reply.

She was just about to shrug and head back out, after all, it was not her gear that had been left lying around for any light-fingered passer by to snaffle, when a flash of blue caught her eye.

She turned, trying to place it, then realized that it was something on the floor that had caught her peripheral vision. Something colourful on the floor usually meant it wasn’t supposed to be there. It was probably only a tablecloth or an exhibit that had fallen from one of the tables she supposed, but her natural instinct for tidiness simply couldn’t leave it lying there like that to get dirty.

With a small sigh, she turned and walked further amongst the maze of tables, and then stopped abruptly.

She was looking down at a pair of shoes, with their shiny black soles pointing straight up at the ceiling. Rather fine, black leather shoes, to be exact. And above them, a pair of blue trousers.

Not a tablecloth then, Jenny thought inconsequentially.

Her next thought was that someone had been elected by the taxidermists to guard their stuff after all. Her thought after that was that that someone had been caught lying down on the job.

Then she thought that she was being silly. Whoever the shoes and trousers belonged to wasn’t taking a nap, but was obviously on the floor doing something else. Picking up dropped stock perhaps. Or fixing an uneven table leg.

She abruptly realized that she’d been standing dead still in one place for a little while now, and that whoever it was on the floor hadn’t moved much in that time – if at all. She also realized that she seemed to be breathing rather hard.