No Graves As Yet (34 page)

“Rubbish!” Morel exploded, ignoring Beecher completely. “That’s absolute bloody rubbish! He was a charming, brilliant, conspiring, arrogant sod who enjoyed his power over people, and for once he went too far.” He swung his arm wide, almost hitting Foubister. “He made you run errands like a boot boy. He took Rattray’s girlfriend, just to show everyone that he could.” He glanced at Beecher and away again. “He got away with all kinds of things nobody else did!” His voice was almost a scream above the rain.

“Shut up, Morel, you’re drunk!” Beecher shouted at him. “Go and put your head under the cold tap before you make even more of a fool of yourself. Or go and stand in the rain!” He jerked his hand toward the streaming window.

“I’m not drunk!” Morel said bitterly. “The rest of you are! You don’t have any idea what’s going on!” He jabbed his finger viciously in no particular direction. “Perth does! That miserable little bastard can see through us all. It’ll give him a kick to arrest one of us. Can’t you see it in his face—the glee? He’s positively smacking his lips.”

“Then at least it’ll be over!” Foubister yelled it as if it was an accusation.

“No, it won’t, you fool!” Morel shouted back at him. “It won’t ever be over! Do you think we can just go back to the way we were? You’re an idiot!”

Foubister launched himself at Morel, but Beecher had seen it coming and caught him in full flight, staggering backward to pitch up hard against the wall, Foubister in his arms.

Outside the rain was still roaring and hissing over the rooftops and bouncing back off the ground.

Beecher straightened up and pushed Foubister away. Foubister swung around to face Morel, Joseph, and Elwyn. “Of course we won’t be the same!” he choked, his voice a sob. “For a start, one of us will be hanged!”

Elwyn looked dazed, as if someone had hit him also.

Morel was white to the lips. “Better than going to war, which is where the rest of us will end up,” he lashed back. “He was always afraid of that, wasn’t he—our great Sebastian! He—”

Elwyn lurched forward and hit Morel as hard as he could, sending him staggering backward to strike his head and shoulders on the wall and slither to a heap on the floor.

“He wasn’t a coward!” Elwyn gasped out the words, tears streaming down his face. “If you say that again, I’ll kill you!” And he aimed another punch, but Morel saw it coming and stumbled out of the way.

Beecher was staring at Elwyn in disbelief.

Elwyn jerked forward again, and Joseph grasped his arms, exerting all his strength to hold him, surprised to find it sufficient. “That was stupid,” he said coldly. “I think you had better go and sober up, too. If we don’t see you again until tomorrow, that will be more than soon enough.” Elwyn went slack, and Joseph let him go.

Beecher helped Morel to his feet.

Elwyn glared sullenly at Joseph, then turned and walked away.

Morel shook himself and winced, then mumbled something, touching his jaw tentatively and smearing blood across his mouth.

“Maybe that will teach you to keep a wiser tongue in your head,” Joseph said unsympathetically.

Morel said nothing, but limped away.

“Coward . . . ?” Beecher turned the word over as if he had discovered a new and profound meaning in it.

“Everybody’s afraid,” Joseph responded, “except those who are too arrogant to realize the danger. It’s an easy word to fling around, and it’s guaranteed to hurt pretty well anyone.”

“Yes . . . yes, it is,” Beecher agreed. “And I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do about it. Isn’t there anything worth salvaging out of this? God knows what!” He pushed his hair off his forehead, gave Joseph a sudden, bright, gentle smile, and went back the way he had come.

The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started. The wet stones of the quad steamed, and everything smelled sharp and clean.

Joseph continued on to his rooms. But he knew that he needed to face the fact that he was afraid Sebastian might have been morally blackmailing Beecher. He had either to prove it to be true, and perhaps destroy one of the best friends he had ever had, or else to prove it untrue—or at least that he was innocent of Sebastian’s death—and release them both from the fear that now invaded everything. He must not avoid it any longer.

He walked across the quad and into the shade of his own stairway. The conclusion that Beecher and Connie Thyer were in love had become inescapable, but without any proof, how could Sebastian have blackmailed Beecher? Was that a delusion, one of the many born of fear? Now was the time to find out.

He turned and walked very slowly back out again and across to the stair up to Sebastian’s rooms. The door was locked, but he found the bedder, who let him in.

“You sure, Dr. Reavley?” she said unhappily, her face screwed up in anxiety. “I’n’t nothin’ in there as worth seein’ now.”

“Please open it, Mrs. Nunn,” he repeated. “It’ll be all right. There’s something I need to find—if it’s there.”

She obeyed, still pursing her lips with doubt.

He went in slowly and closed the door behind him. It was silent. He drew in a deep breath. It smelled stale. The windows had been closed for over three weeks, and the heat had built up, motionless, suffocating. Yet he could not smell blood, and he expected to.

His eyes were drawn to the wall. He had to look because he could think of nothing else until he did. It was in his mind’s eye whichever way he faced, even if his eyes were closed.

It was there, paler than he had remembered, brown rather than red. It looked old, like something that happened years ago. The chair was empty, the books still piled on the table and stacked on the shelves.

Of course Perth would have been through them, and everything else, the papers, the notes, even his clothes. He would have to, searching for anything that would point to who had killed him. Obviously he had found nothing.

Still his own hands turned automatically through the pages of the notes, held up each book and ruffled it to find anything loose, anything hidden. What was he expecting? A letter? Tickets to something, or somewhere?

When he found the photograph he barely looked at it. The only reason it caught his attention at all was because it was Connie Thyer and Beecher standing together, smiling at the camera. There were trees close to them, massive, smooth-trunked, autumnal. Beyond them there was a path winding away toward a drop to the river, and up again at the far side. It could be anywhere. A couple of miles away there was a place not unlike it.

He put it down and moved on. There were other photographs: Connie and her husband, even one of Connie and Joseph himself, and several of students and various young women. He thought one was Abigail, standing beside Rattray and laughing.

He went back to the picture of Connie and Beecher. Something about it was familiar. But he was sure he had never seen it before. It must be the place. If it was somewhere near here, then he would know it, even though it was not the same place as the other pictures.

He held it in his hand, staring at it, trying to recall the scenery around it, the bank of the river beyond the camera’s eye. It went upward steeply. He could remember walking it—with Beecher. They had been eating apples and laughing about something, some long, rambling joke. It had been a bright day, the sun hot on their backs, the stream rattling loudly below them. Little stones loosened and fell into the pool, splashing. The shadows were cool under the trees. There had been wild garlic. They were heading uphill, toward the open moorland, with huge, wind-raked skies—Northumberland!

What had Connie been doing in Northumberland with Beecher? Almost before he had finished asking, the answer was whole in his mind. He remembered her taking a holiday late the previous summer, just after he had come to Cambridge. She had gone north to visit a relative, an aunt or something. And Beecher had gone walking alone; Joseph had been mourning Eleanor and refused even to think of such a thing. He needed to be busy, his mind occupied until exhaustion took over. The thought of so much wild, solitary beauty was too powerful to bear.

But where had Sebastian found the photograph? A dozen answers were possible: found during a visit to Beecher’s rooms, slipped out of the pocket of a jacket left over a chair, or even from the contents of Connie’s handbag when it tipped over.

Was that what had unnerved Beecher to the point he had so openly criticized Sebastian, and at the same time allowed him to get away with such slipshod, challenging behavior? He was afraid. This was proof.

He put it into his pocket and turned to leave. The room was stifling now, the air heavy, choking in the throat. He fancied he could smell the dried blood on the wall and in the cracks of the floorboards. Did one ever really get such things out?

It was time to face Beecher. He went out and closed the door behind him. He felt stiff and weary, dreading what was to come.

It was windless and hot in the late slanting sunlight as he crossed the quad and went in through the door on the far side and up the stairs to Beecher’s rooms. He dreaded having to be so blunt about what was a private subject, but nothing was truly private anymore.

He reached the landing and was surprised to see Beecher’s door slightly ajar. It was unusual because it was an invitation to anyone to interrupt whatever he was doing, and that was completely out of character.

“Beecher?” he called, pushing it a few inches wider. “Beecher?”

There was no answer. Could he have slipped out to see someone, intending to be back in a moment or two, and simply left the door ajar?

He did not like to go in uninvited. He was going to intrude painfully enough when it was inevitable. He called out again, and there was still no answer. He stood, expecting to hear Beecher’s familiar step any minute, but there was no sound except the call of voices in the distance.

Then at last there were footsteps, light and quick. Joseph spun around. But it was Rattray coming down from the floor above.

“Have you seen Dr. Beecher?” Joseph asked.

“No, sir. I thought he was in his rooms. Are you sure he isn’t?”

“Beecher!” Joseph called again, this time raising his voice considerably.

Still there was silence. But it would be most unlike Beecher to have gone out and left his door open. He pushed it wider and went inside. There was no one in the study, but the bedroom door beyond was also ajar. Joseph walked over and knocked on it. It swung open. Then he saw Beecher. He was leaning back in the bedroom chair, his head lolled against the wall behind him. He looked exactly as Sebastian had: the small hole in his right temple, the gaping wound on the other side, the blood drenching the wall. Only this time the revolver was on the floor where it had fallen from the dead hand.

For a moment Joseph could not move for horror. It lurched up inside him, and he had the thought that he was going to be sick. The room wavered, and there was a roar in his ears.

He breathed in deeply and tasted bile in his throat. Gradually he backed out of the door and through the outer room to find Rattray still waiting on the landing. Rattray saw his face and the words were hoarse on his lips. “What is it?”

“Dr. Beecher is dead.” Joseph’s voice sounded strangled, as if his lungs were paralyzed. “Go and get Perth . . . or . . . someone.”

“Yes, sir.” But for several seconds Rattray was unable to move.

Joseph closed the door to Beecher’s rooms and stood for a moment gasping for air. Then his legs buckled and he collapsed onto the floor, leaning his back against the door lintel. His whole body was shuddering uncontrollably, and the tears ran down his face. It was too much; he could not bear it.

At last Rattray went, stumbling down the first two or three steps, and Joseph heard his feet all the way down, then a terrible silence.

It seemed an eternity of confusion, horror and soul-bruising misery until Perth arrived with Mitchell and, a couple of paces behind him, Aidan Thyer. They went in past Joseph, and a few moments later Thyer came out, gray-faced.

“I’m sorry, Reavley,” he said gently. “This must be rotten for you. Did you guess?”

“What?” Joseph looked up at him slowly, dreading what he was going to say. His mind was whirling; thoughts slipped out of his grasp, no coherence to them, but he knew they were black with tragedy.

Thyer held out his hand. “Come on. You need a stiff shot of brandy. Come back to the house and I’ll get . . .”

Oh, God!
Joseph was appalled as one thought emerged from the rest: Connie! She would have to be told that Beecher was dead! Who should tell her? It was going to be unbearable for her, whoever it was, but what would be least terrible? Her husband . . . alone? Could she mask her own feelings for Beecher? Was it even conceivable that Thyer knew?

Had Beecher taken his own life, knowing that the truth would come out and that he’d be blamed for Sebastian’s murder? Joseph refused even to think that he might actually have done it—but the possibility hung on the dark edges of his mind. Or was it Aidan Thyer who had made it look like suicide, standing there in front of him, with his grave face and pale hair, his hand outstretched to help Joseph to his feet?

The answer was something he could not evade. Yes, he should go to the house, whether it was he or Thyer who told Connie. She would need help. If he did not go and there was a further tragedy, he would be to blame.

He grasped Thyer’s hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, accepting Thyer’s arm to steady himself until he found his balance.

“Thank you,” he said huskily. “Yes, I think a stiff brandy would be very good.”

Thyer nodded and led the way down the stairs, across the quad and through the archway toward the master’s lodgings. Joseph’s mind raced as he walked beside him a little dizzily, every step drawing him closer to the moment that would end Connie’s happiness. Would she believe Beecher had killed Sebastian? Had she even known of the blackmail? Had Beecher told her, or had he borne it alone? Or had the photograph been his?

And might she think it was Aidan Thyer? If she did, then she might be terrified of him herself. But Joseph could not stay there forever to protect her. What could he say or do so that she would be safe after he left? It was his responsibility, because he was the only one who knew.