Death at the Alma Mater (10 page)

A low, light mist was caught in a glimmering haze by the lamps, and lay like a light scarf on the river; no moon was visible in the night sky. As St. Just and his sergeant approached, the air was rent like intermittent lightning by the flash from the stills photographer’s camera. Spectators—the staff and visiting members of the college—had long been herded back inside the college by one of the local constables sent to help secure the scene.

St. Just greeted Dr. Malenfant as he emerged from the tent and asked, “Time of death?”

Malenfant gazed laconically at his old friend for a long moment before speaking.

“Always the same with you, isn’t it,” he said, removing his latex gloves with a fastidious Snap! Snap! “No matter how long since we’ve seen each other. Just, ‘Time of death?’ he wants to know.” Malenfant, despite his years in England, remained thoroughly French in manner and habit, the more so when agitated. “You may have observed,” he continued, “that my holiday at present lacks certain…amenities. For one thing, it is not taking place in France. Puzzlingly, I remain here, in my summer holiday costume, miles from any beach.”

St. Just imagined Malenfant, under his protective clothing, was wearing one of those blousy shirts the French seemed to go in for—those shirts that always made him think of old men playing a game of boules—and striped espadrilles on his feet.

“Why, you may ask?” Malenfant was now in full flow. He wore the kind of old-fashioned wire-rimmed glasses that have to be looped to one’s ears. He unlooped them now, and paused to slick back his dark hair. “I appreciate your asking. My estimable colleague—my so-called replacement—has been struck down by a summer cold. I am told it is of amazing intensity, this grippe. He would have me believe it borders on pneumonia leading to an early, painful, and slow death. Pah. Between nine-sixteen and nine-fifty.”

St. Just judged, correctly, that Malenfant had at last arrived at the answer to the original question.

“That’s remarkable precise, even for someone of your gifts,” said St. Just mildly.

“She was seen alive at around nine-fifteen. They had a formal dinner and it adjourned then. She was found at nine-fifty by some kid in a boat, so I am told.” Malenfant rendered the word as keed. It was a true barometer of his distress when he allowed his flawless English to slip. He pointed to where Sebastian had abandoned the scull. “So you see, you don’t really need me at all for time of death. I won’t be able to get you a better estimate even after the autopsy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. You’ll have some preliminary results tomorrow and unless my colleague experiences a miraculous recovery, I will be around to answer your questions. She’s been manually strangled, to answer your next question, by a right-handed killer. Stunned first, by someone wielding the scull found by her body, no doubt. No rope, no rape. Bonne nuit.”

Poor Malenfant, thought St. Just. The man was a genius, but seldom was anyone so little suited by temperament to the unpredictable demands of his job. Meals, holidays, family occasions—all were sacrificed, routinely but unpredictably, on the altar of the homicide investigation. From no one else would St. Just have tolerated such curtness with equanimity, but Malenfant’s written report would, he knew, be a model of over-compensating thoroughness and accuracy—once the man had gotten a grip on himself.

He also knew Malenfant had what he called a mistress in France to whom he longed to return. She would more rightly be called a girlfriend, as Malenfant was not married, but he clung to the fifties noir term as much more seductive, as having that certain je ne sais quoi with which “girlfriend” could not begin to compete. In his own way, the otherwise gloomy Malenfant was a bon vivant who happened to be a top-flight pathologist. Wine, women, song, food—these were things, St. Just knew, to which Malenfant was passionately devoted, although duty always won out. St. Just had asked him once why he continued to do the job he did. He had looked at the policeman as if he were mad. “So I am reminded to live, of course,” he had replied.

“One question, Malenfant, before you go,” said St. Just.

Malenfant, sighing theatrically, turned slowly back to face him. “Isn’t there always?”

“Could a woman have done this?”

“Do you mean is a woman capable psychologically of choking someone to death? If you have to ask that, it is time for you to broaden your acquaintance with the fairer sex. If you mean physically, which I assume you do …” Malenfant reflected, then said, “Given the small physique of the victim, yes. A rather determined woman … but then, by definition, a strangler is determined. There are far simpler ways to kill someone. But given that the victim was almost certainly stunned, then strangled, it would be an easy enough job for anyone, man or woman. This is why accidental asphyxiation during sex games is such a recurring feature of my professional life—it doesn’t take all that much time or strength and before the person realizes too much strength has been applied—poof! A minute or two’s compression of the carotid arteries will do it. By the way, I’m certain we’ll find your killer wore gloves.”

Here Malenfant studied his own slender hands, with their long, elegant fingers—a pianist’s hands. St. Just likewise looked at those hands, whose job it was to plunge into a victim’s body and … well. The mind recoiled. Although both men served the same cause of bringing the guilty to justice, often in unpleasant ways, he would take his job over Malenfant’s any day.

“Yes, it could have been a man or a woman. Take a little peek for yourself; just don’t go inside the tent just yet. We’ll let forensics do their work, shall we?—they might have more to add. Once again, I must bid you gentlemen bonne nuit.”

To his retreating back, Sergeant Fear murmured, “I always think he’s rather like an undertaker.”

“A très chic undertaker,” agreed St. Just.

They walked over to the tented entrance. The body was already in a bag, ready for transport. St. Just motioned to one of the attendants, who unzipped the bag to reveal the victim’s face. A woman who had been beautiful, then. Blonde and in her thirties, maybe early forties, with regular, pretty features distorted by a mask of fear. Or was it surprise? St. Just felt he recognized her from somewhere. The artificial light caught the diamonds in her earlobes and the gold at her neck, setting them aglitter like the jewels on a pharaoh’s coffin.

One of the SOCO team approached St. Just and Sergeant Fear.

“Her evening bag was found near the body, Sir. Well, we assume it was hers. We’re taking it to the lab for a closer look for prints. I’ve written out a list of the contents—nothing out of the ordinary though.” He handed him the list.

St. Just asked Fear, “At what distance are we from the college proper, would you say? A five-minute walk?”

“Less. It took us about three minutes, but we were in no particular hurry.”

St. Just nodded. He looked up and about him, taking in the scene. Across the river, the lights of one of St. Mike’s oldest and largest foes, Jesus College, glared balefully, as if in retaliation for the SOCO lamps. There once had been a bridge joining the colleges but an early Master of St. Mike’s, goaded beyond the limits of his patience, had literally had it burned down during an ongoing feud over access rights. There was also, St. Just noted, no footpath.

“Have someone find this young man who discovered her body—let him know he’s to remain available to us. We’ll need to decide the batting order for talking to everyone.”

The Master had been hovering some distance away from the crime scene. As the two men approached, having overheard them he said, “You mean Sebastian Burrows. The young man. He’s inside with the others. I’ve asked them all to wait up for you in the Senior Combination Room. Was that all right?”

“That was precisely fine. Let me have a further word with you first, Master. In your study, perhaps?”

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

He sent the Master
on ahead, having arranged that they would meet him in his study in a few minutes. St. Just exchanged a few words with one of the constables, then he and Sergeant Fear headed towards the college proper. They ran into Portia at the foot of the main staircase. She looked as if she’d been waiting for St. Just, as no doubt she had.

St. Just nodded to Sergeant Fear, indicating he should wait for him with the Master, then turned to her. She was wearing what he knew was her standard summer work outfit: cropped black yoga pants and a matching sleeveless top. She was looking even more delectable than in his imaginings. But first things first.

“So, what do you know about all this?” he asked her.

“I just wish I knew more,” she said. “I wasn’t part of the group. This really has little to do with me, this weekend, so I paid little attention, and I’ve been wracking my brains since I heard what happened tonight. Actually, the Master let it be known that he preferred it if the ‘loose ends’ hanging about—the summer people—laid low until the old members had left. If we absolutely felt we had to emerge from our rooms for sustenance, we were to strive to look dignified, intelligent, and sober. What he thinks we look like on usual occasions one can scarcely imagine. In any event, it hardly mattered. The honored (read: wealthy) guests were all housed in the Brooke Wing, separate from the revolting masses. I just met people in passing, really—a chat here and there. I’ve been up to my ears in The Paper Without End.”

Even with St. Just, Portia could not bring herself to reveal how often she abandoned the dratted thesis to turn to the almost visceral pleasure—the sights, sounds, smells—of the world inhabited by her fictional detective. Of working out the puzzling dynamics of his latest case.

“It’s all right,” St. Just said. “Just tell me whatever you remember of what’s happened tonight. Start with after the dinner.”

“Well …” she began. “I went up to my room after dinner to freshen up. This was a bit after nine-fifteen. Then I came straight back downstairs and headed into the SCR for a glass of port. The Master had invited me to join the group. I gather he felt I wouldn’t let the side down too badly. Some of the Fellows—Professor Puckle, for example—might start droning on about Lacanian theory, or Freudian analysis, or something, which is pretty much everyone’s cue to run for cover. So it was quite an honor to be asked, if you knew the way the Master’s mind works. Frightful snob.”

“Did you have much to do with Lexy Laurant?”

“Hardly anything,” Portia replied, her lips curved in a little moue of disappointment. “She was lovely to look at, is nearly all I can tell you. My impression, for what it’s worth, was that she was massively insecure, the type to cling for ballast to anyone who came along. I think she was flirting with the Argentine she brought along in order to make Sir James jealous—they were married once, did you know that? He’s here this weekend, current wife in tow. That was my sense of what was going on—Lexy was playing the jealousy card. But the whole thing looked rather a game. Harmless, too, I would have said. Well, before she was killed, I’d have said that.”

“The Argentine?”

“Sorry. His name is Geraldo Valentiano.”

“Sounds like a silent film star.”

She smiled. “Not far wrong. Just wait until you meet him. You are in for a treat.”

“Where did they meet, he and Lexy? Any idea?”

“Dunno,” she said. “I doubt it was at a Mensa convention.”

“Anything else you can think of?”

A shrug. “Lexy was very wealthy. But then, I gather they all are, so as a motive, money would seem to be a wash. She did tell me on the way down to dinner that her room had been broken into, but that nothing had been taken.”

“Really?” St. Just mused on that for a moment, then said, “This Geraldo—did he seem possessive of her … jealous?”

“Not exactly,” she replied, drawing out the words as she considered the question. “But he seems the type to own people, rather. Especially women. I guess you could call it a form of jealousy.”

St. Just sighed. The investigation had just begun and he was already weary. Suspects galore and probably motives to match. But if it weren’t a complicated case, and a high-profile one, the Chief wouldn’t have landed him with it. He almost longed to be out with the Reach Out! team, being eaten alive by household pets.

Portia was looking up at him worriedly, seeing his exhaustion clearly in the unforgiving light of the overhead chandelier. His was a handsome face, candid and open, with a beaked nose that jutted from the strong planes of his face like a promontory of his native Cornish coast. His thick dark hair fell more or less in a center part, but the white hair that had begun to fringe around his ears was becoming pronounced. That and the small scar under his chin gave him a slight air of a battle-scarred tomcat.

They stood close together for a moment and a small surge of mutual reassurance seemed to pass between them. St. Just could feel the skin around his eyes soften and relax as he returned her gaze.

“I’ll want to talk with you further, of course,” he told her, and smiled. “Meanwhile, think back for me over everything that’s happened. Oh, and I don’t have to tell you, do I? No investigating on your own.”

“Who, me?”

“You. I mean it, Portia.”

She all but stuck out her tongue at him, but she subsided—willingly enough, to all appearances. Why upset him, when all she really intended was to keep her eyes wide open from now on? With a promise to see her when he could, St. Just left to find Sergeant Fear and the Master.

The Master was looking slightly improved by being returned to his natural habitat, like an otter released into a pond, but he was not improved by much. His manner as he waved the policemen to two chairs in front of his desk was distracted, his mind clearly elsewhere. Sergeant Fear, having first discreetly moved his chair to a far corner of the room, pulled out his policeman’s notebook and riffled through it to a clean page. He was restless; called out from a rare night at home with the wife and family, half his mind was still with them. Furthermore, with two small children, the sergeant had only recently come to appreciate the value of an unbroken night’s sleep. Unconsciously, he snapped the elastic band of the notebook until St. Just turned and silenced him with a “Would you mind?” gaze.

“Put us quickly in the picture, would you please?” St. Just asked the Master. “When was the last time the victim was seen alive?”

At the word “victim” the Master gave another little shudder of distaste.

“Lexy Laurant,” he replied with emphasis, “was last seen by me and I should think several others in the Fellows’ Garden, talking with Sir James. This was following the dinner. We were all on our way to the SCR for port.”

“You saw this yourself? You’re certain? Excellent. Tell me: What was her manner? Was she nervous? Upset?”

“They seemed to be having a normal enough conversation, given the circumstances.”

“Would you elaborate on the circumstances?”

The Master sighed. “As you will no doubt hear from all and sundry, they were once married. Lexy and Sir James, as he was later to become. Both the marriage and the rapid breakup of it occurred when they were both students here. There was a great deal of unpleasantness. A very great deal. Still, things of that nature have a way of sorting themselves out with the passage of years, don’t you find?”

St. Just’s experience was that the passage of years could also lead to regret, pent-up anger, and lingering recrimination, but he nodded as if to accept the Master’s halcyon view of all things marital.

“Sir James is a writer, you know. Knighted for his contributions. He has had some great success in particular with—now, I want to make sure I get this right: Cygnus and the Northern Cross. I believe that’s the title.”

St. Just said, “We’ll need you to fill us in on the security arrangements at the college. This is why I wanted to speak with you first.”

Did he imagine it, or did the Master’s shoulders relax slightly at those words? His nervousness was understandable—no one really wanted to be first up in a murder investigation. But his relief at the change of subject, towards mechanics and away from personalities, seemed a tad obvious.

“I see,” said the Master. “As to the security arrangements—well, such as they are, I will gladly tell you about them. We have a CCTV system that’s a combination of dummy and real cameras.” St. Just nodded. He had noticed the bare-bones arrangement at the boathouse. “Anyone could get to the boathouse, although the building itself is kept locked and the keys strictly accounted for. And before curfew, anyone could get into the grounds at the back. It’s part of the Porters’ duties to patrol, but of course they can’t be everywhere. The Fellows’ Garden has an outer gate kept locked after curfew following an unfortunate incident in which we found a donkey drinking from the commemorative pond. He wore a Magdalene scarf and a straw boater, as I recall. The undergraduate population, sadly, is not what it was.”

There was a moment of silence as St. Just and the Master appeared internally to review the changes wrought by the passage of time, and by the influx of scholarship students. Fear, sitting in his corner like a spider with a notebook, recognized this as one of his superior’s techniques: He was good at getting the nobs to let down their hair. Fear tested the point of his Biro against his notebook and waited.

St. Just said at last, “Things are not what they were in my day, I can tell you.” Silently he added: Thank God. “Well, I’m sure you will appreciate that we’ll need to talk with the Porters, especially whoever was on duty tonight. And I will need a list from you of everyone present in the college this night, including staff, of course. Those in the kitchen, the bedders, and so forth.”

“The college servants. Yes, yes, of course. But you can’t think—some of them have been here years, since I’ve been here. Anyway, there’s a reduced staff, because of the time of year. We shut up entire areas of the college. It empties out except for the ‘orphans’ who can’t afford to fly home. Even when we’re at full capacity, there’s often not enough to go around to operate as we’d like,” the Master finished sadly.

St. Just said in a commiserating tone, “Not quite what it was in the day?”

“My, no. Not that St. Michael’s ever had much of a day, really. But now, we’re running this place on a veritable shoestring. You get half what you used to get out of the servants, too.”

I’ll bet.

“I do hate to trouble you,” said St. Just, “but we’ll need a room set aside, somewhere where we can conduct our interviews. I think that’s much preferable to asking everyone to come to the station, don’t you?”

The Master, who had turned several shades paler at the mention of the station, agreed wholeheartedly that holding the interviews at the college would be much the better course.

“I think it would be easiest if you use my study, at least until other arrangements can be made,” he added. “You’ll have complete privacy here. I hope you won’t mind my asking, but how was she killed?”

St. Just told him.

“Oh, dear. Oh, my, oh my. My goodness me.” He began wringing his hands again. It was a little like holding a conversation with the White Rabbit. “There’s been nothing like this since—well, I shall have to check the archives. Possibly that gambling dispute in the early eighteen hundreds. That ended badly. One dead, but no one sent down for it, thank God. They were able to hush it up rather quickly. Anyway, I’ll go and see what I can arrange for you.”