Matricide at St. Martha's (24 page)

‘Had you rigged it with them beforehand?’

‘What do you take me for, Robert? Anyway, I didn’t have the chance. Either you’ve been fantasizing and Mary Lou was with the Bursar all last night, or they’ve had a pretty thorough rehearsal.’

‘Good old Jack. You can see why she’s ace at her job.’

‘I can see why I’m glad she’s on the same side as I am.’

‘So has Romford taken Sandra and Bridget off in chains to the station?’

‘No, because Sandra made such a song and dance about being under stress and under pressure that he’s convinced that nothing that she’s admitted would stand up in court even though she’s signed her statement. He gives in very quickly to psychological terrorism, does old Romford. Now if Mary Lou had been in a similar position it would have been different. He’s taken a rooted objection to her.’

‘Because she’s black?’

‘No, in fairness to him, more than anything because she laughs at him. As far as he’s concerned, Mary Lou and the Bursar are bats out of hell whereas Sandra and Bridget are barrack-room lawyers. He hates that sort less.’

‘So what next?’

‘Don’t ask me. Romford’s gone off muttering so I’m left to my own devices until tomorrow morning. Dinner?’

‘Sure. Do you mind if I bring Mary Lou along.’

‘Sorry, Robert. You know I can’t take the risk of dining with a serious suspect.’

‘Course you can. As long as you both pay for yourselves. Remember, you don’t work for Romford, you work for Jim. He wouldn’t disapprove.’

‘All right. Against my better judgement. Will you still consort with me if I’m fired from the police?’

‘I’ll get you a job at St Martha’s. It looks as if Greasy Joan is leaving.’

Amiss burst through the Bursar’s social prophylactic early evening.

‘How are you getting on?’

‘Consolidating. Anglo-Saxon Annie and Thackaberry are pretty clear that they are to vote down Holdness. I’ve terrified them about the attitude of the Dykes towards medievalists. And you?’

‘If you can convince Pusey that if your side gets in he’ll get a three-year contract – which is what Bridget is offering – he’ll rat on her if he thinks she’ll lose.’

‘OK, I’ll get Emily on to it.’

‘No point, he doesn’t think Emily can deliver. You’ve got to guarantee it. He’s prepared to take your word.’

‘Done.’

‘What about Crowley?’

‘No dice. He did the same deal as Francis with Deborah and has been offered it again by Bridget. He says both were prepared to overlook what he calls the discreditable allegations about his past. That, incidentally, would seem to put paid to any motive he might have had to knock off Deborah. But while Emily and I are prepared to give him a few weeks’ grace, we won’t let a cheat stay on the premises. Things are bad enough here without having a bogus scholar/clergyman.’

‘No room for manoeuvre?’

‘None. I may be pragmatic but I’m not amoral.’

‘But why can’t you get the College Council to kick him out now?’

‘Because obviously the Dykes won’t go along with that. Anyway, if he’s on their side and they win because of that, it might be possible to upset the election later on appeal.’

‘Is it a Troutbeck trait to like belts and braces?’

‘It’s a Troutbeck trait to like winning. Speaking of which, has young Ellis reported our triumph this afternoon.’

‘Indeed he has. Congratulations. What a pair of consummate liars.’

‘Thank you. Why that fool Romford didn’t question us the first moment I gave her an alibi I’ll never know. We’d have failed ignominiously. Twenty minutes homework did the job. She’s a bright girl.’

‘Where is she anyway?’

‘Consorting with the Dykes. Spying out the land. She’s my undercover agent.’

‘Any idea when she’ll be free?’

‘Not this evening.’

‘Shit. I’d hoped she’d join me and Pooley.’

‘Well, you’ll just have to have a Boys Night Out on your own. Now get off the phone, I’m busy.’

Disconsolately, Amiss roamed around the little garden, brooding. His mind felt like a washing machine, the same material going round and round and round and seeming to become more threadbare by the minute. The bright idea did not come to him until the moment when physical exhaustion threatened. You idiot, he said to himself. Why didn’t you think of that earlier? He strode off into the building and headed towards the Senior Tutor’s room.

‘Will it work?’ asked Pooley.

‘Depends on the timing being got right.’

‘I can think of better collaborators.’

‘Do I have a choice?’

Pooley reflected. ‘Can’t say anyone comes to mind.’

‘Pass the wine.’

‘Go easy, Robert. You’re going to need all your wits about you tomorrow if it goes wrong.’

‘No, I won’t. This either works or it doesn’t. Either way, Jack’s going to have to be the master strategist. Now, what has today yielded, other than the alibi mess?’

‘Well, as per instructions, Romford’s had the tip-off note examined closely by forensic, but there are no fingerprints, nothing special about the paper and the words were formed out of Letraset that you can get in any stationery store.’

‘What did it actually say?’

‘Oh, you mean are there any stylistic oddities about it? No, it was literate and straightforward. Something along the lines of: “DRUGS ARE AT THE CENTRE OF ALL THIS. LOOK IN THE BLACK BIRD’S ROOM.’ ”

‘Not a very PC way of putting it.’

‘No. Even Romford grasped that, so he concluded it must have been written by a servant. But when he tried that on Hardiman, he told him he was a fool.’

‘I have to say that I would be surprised if any of the put-upon domestic staff would care if they found them taking coke at the College Council. They’ve far more than that to worry about, like not starving to death on their rotten wages. However, the perpetrator has been admirably brief. The note doesn’t give you much to go on.’

‘Nothing does,’ said Pooley sadly. ‘I suppose all we can do is chew over motives again – who wanted to kill each of the Mistresses most.’

‘I hope you’re making plans to guard the next one. It seems a pretty high-risk occupation being Mistress of St Martha’s.’

‘Well, of course, you could always leave it to the good old process of elimination. If the Virgin candidate wins and is murdered we can be pretty sure the baddy was a Dyke. If the Dyke candidate wins and isn’t murdered we can be equally be pretty sure it was a Dyke.’

‘And if the Virgin candidate wins and isn’t murdered, or the Dyke wins and is?’

‘That enough hypotheses for one evening. Fill my glass.’

Amiss looked at his watch. ‘It’s half past ten, Ellis. I should be going.’

‘You have another assignation?’ Pooley tried not to look disapproving.

‘More an expectation.’

‘You’re getting in deeper and deeper.’

‘Well, Mary Lou isn’t and that’s my safety net. When this is over, I’ll get out of St Martha’s ASAP, I promise, but I just don’t seem able to pass up this opportunity while it’s so readily available. How could anyone turn down a temptation of this quality — it would be akin to refusing the Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1961 because you know you really should cut down on your drinking.’

Pooley sighed and called for the bill. ‘And here am I unattached and nobody’s crawling into my bed.’

‘You frighten them, Ellis. You’re so virtuous, so proper, so organized, well-behaved and sober. They’re afraid they won’t measure up. I reckon most of the success I’ve had with women has been because of my failings. No one has ever accused me of being perfect.’

Pooley had a burst of candour. ‘I don’t think I’d have the courage to go to bed with a feminist anyway. I wouldn’t know how to do it in a politically correct fashion.’

‘Mary Lou is most reassuring on that. From the outset she explained that she wasn’t a feminist in bed.’ He looked guilty. ‘Now, that’s quite enough kissing and telling. Let’s be off.’

‘I’m sorry’, said the note Amiss found shoved under his door. ‘Can’t get away. Talk to you tomorrow.’

Amiss knew he should feel relieved. Instead he felt so disappointed he was afraid he might cry.

27

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Breakfast was dominated by the newspapers. ‘DYKES IN DOUBLE MURDER PROBE’, said the
Sun
, ‘SERIAL KILLER STALKS THE CAMPUS’, said the
Mirror
, ‘CALL INSPECTOR MORSE’, said the
Mail
, ‘ANXIETY AT CAMBRIDGE COLLEGE AFTER SECOND KILLING’, said the
Independent
on page 3. For the first time in their lives, the Fellows of St Martha’s focused their attention on the tabloids.

‘Oh, what an awful thing to say,’ said the Senior Tutor. ‘How can they?’

The Bursar looked up. ‘What?’

‘It says here that St Martha’s is known as a hot-bed of lesbian passion and militant feminism.’

‘Well, isn’t it?’ asked the Bursar absent-mindedly.

‘Not yet,’ said Anglo-Saxon Annie. Amiss was amazed. He’d never yet heard her say anything other than ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. The Bursar must have really been stirring her up about threats to scholarship.

Bridget glared. Sandra piped up dutifully. ‘We can expect nothing from the paternalistic capitalist press but vilification, misrepresentation and homophobia.’

Amiss thought she sounded quite pleased.

‘Listen to this,’ said Miss Thackaberry. ‘They claim to have got hold of a list of the papers read at the Gender and Ethnic Workshop.’

‘Read some out,’ said the Bursar. ‘Give us all a good laugh.’

‘ “Out of the Drawing Room; Exclusion Strategies against Women Artists with particular emphasis on the life and works of Mbele Rafferty”.’

‘Who’s she?’ asked the Bursar.

‘There you are,’ said Sandra. ‘None of you have heard of her, because she’s been excluded.’

‘Is she any good?’

‘It is not for us to be judgemental about art. Elitism is…’

The Bursar groaned. ‘I bet she doesn’t even exist. What you might call the ultimate exclusion. Get on with it, Thackaberry.’

‘ “Embrace the Victim: the Politics of Gender in Modern Teaching”; “Alcohol Disadvantage Among the Irish in Britain”.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Pusey.

‘That they don’t get enough to drink, of course,’ said the Bursar helpfully. Sandra’s glare passed her by.

‘ “Sisters or Suckers: paternalist opportunism in the women’s movement”; “Rap against Repression: Ice-T and the Police State”.’

‘What the hell is that?’ asked the Bursar.

‘There you are,’ said Sandra. ‘You’re completely out of touch with modern literature.’

That was more than Amiss could bear. ‘Literature’s going a bit far. He’s only got a vocabulary of a hundred words, and most of them have only four letters.’

‘WASP values,’ said Sandra.

Miss Thackaberry ploughed on. ‘ “Damning the Dykes: lesbian invisibility in the contemporary novel”; “Strip-searched, Tortured and Marginalized: the Women of Northern Ireland”.’

‘What? All of them?’ enquired the Bursar.

‘No member of the oppressed minority,’ said Sandra confidently, ‘can walk down the streets of Belfast without being strip-searched at the whim of the British occupying forces.’

‘What a load of bollocks,’ said the Bursar.

Amiss was more tactful. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘It was in the last issue of
Women Militant
.’

‘Ah, indeed. A most reliable source,’ snarled the Bursar. ‘Are they raped as well?’

‘That wasn’t mentioned.’

‘Good. I’m glad it’s not yet compulsory.’

‘Listen, everybody,’ called Crowley, ‘there’s a nice obituary in
The Times
. Shall I read it out?’

‘Why not?’ said Bridget Holdness. Amiss wondered if she were being momentarily statesmanlike. ‘It would be more edifying than those scurrilous rags.’

‘Very well.’ Crowley bowed his head for a moment to collect himself and began sonorously.

‘ “A daughter of the manse, Maud Theodosia Buckbarrow early showed that seriousness of purpose and high moral awareness that was to distinguish her as a scholar throughout her life. By the time she won her scholarship to King Harold’s School for Girls in Birmingham, she was an accomplished student of classics and was already showing a precocious interest in medieval Latin.

‘ “At King Harold’s, where she was Head Girl and Captain of Lacrosse, her capture of the 1951 Matutina Hobbiss Open Scholarship to St Martha’s College, Cambridge, came as no surprise. There she was universally popular, for Maud Buckbarrow was never a prisoner of learning. She enjoyed nothing more after lectures and study than a hearty row or a vigorous team game. Nor did she confine herself intellectually to her formal studies: it was she who founded the Cambridge University Palaeography Society and organized many happy field trips to local archives. There were no surprises when she passed out with a double first in History and English, but such was her generosity that she was never to regret coming second to her friend Ida Troutbeck… ” ’

Crowley put the newspaper down: everyone looked at the Bursar.

‘I never knew that,’ said Miss Thackaberry.

‘Well, if you were called “Ida”, wouldn’t you keep it quiet?’

‘I meant about your academic record.’

‘It was only exams,’ said the Bursar impatiently. ‘Maud was a proper scholar. I never was.’

Crowley resumed reading.

‘ “… who was to spend her life in public service before returning to St Martha’s as Bursar and administrative support to her old friend.

‘ “Maud Buckbarrow was the finest kind of scholar. Truth was her guiding light: accuracy her driving force. Her integrity was a by-word. If sometimes she was criticized by young scholars as being overly dedicated to the values of the past, she could always defend those values as timeless.

‘ “She was, it is true, no innovator. Her critics could say with some justice that St Martha’s remained static as the Cambridge world about it changed. There were those who felt her disdain for the modern obsession with creature comforts was carried a little far. And she was, too, a remorseless opponent of mixed colleges, believing that women did better when encouraged by women and that in a predominantly male environment the woman would suffer from prejudice.” ’