Gifted and Talented (31 page)

As she drove through the dark streets towards Branston, Diana asked herself yet again whether she was doing the right thing. Rosie insisted that she was. Debs, unhesitatingly, had backed Rosie up. Shanna-Mae had been most concerned with the effect of her eye shadow palettes, but had paused whilst applying a lick of liquid eyeliner to opine that she thought Diana couldn’t do otherwise. ‘You can’t let that ’orrible old cow win, can you?’

That all was forgiven next door was the most dizzying relief. Diana’s stomach had twisted with terror when she had opened the door to find Debs on the doorstep, Rosie and Shanna-Mae standing behind her. Debs’ plump face had been inscrutable and Diana would have feared the worst had not Rosie been behind, beaming and with her thumbs up.

Debs had rolled a suspicious look around Diana’s bare hallway. ‘Gone, ’as she?’

‘Yes,’ Diana whispered, recognising these three words for the olive branch they were. The next moment, she was clasped against Debs’ broad and squashy bosom.

An hour later, in the kitchen, a bottle and a half of rosé to the good, Debs was weeping tears of mirth at Diana’s accounts of Sara Upward in London. ‘She actually
paid
people to come in and decorate her Christmas tree for her?’

And now, dressed up, made-up, hair straightened and shining, Diana was about to right some more recent wrongs. She was to confront Richard and Sara. The alumni dinner was the perfect opportunity – in Debs’ view, anyway. ‘He’ll be at the labs avoiding ’er, otherwise.’

‘Bit public though.’

‘Yeah, but you gotta get ’em together, tell ’im in front of ’er.’

And so, in front of whoever happened to be there at the time, Diana would explain to Richard the truth about her divorce. Tell him, too, about Sara’s lies. Sara was unlikely to take any of this calmly, of course, and a violent scene was practically guaranteed.

The thought of such a scene – and Richard’s accompanying embarrassment – was torture. But Debs was adamant that Sara should face the consequences of her actions. Making her do so was, Diana sensed, the price she must pay for the resumption of neighbourly relations.

While Diana wavered, Debs was impressively unblinkered in her view of the situation. She had an answer for even the most unanswerable aspects. ‘What do you mean you can’t believe Richard’s let Sara move in? He may be a brain genius, but these academics are all the same. Got no bloody common sense. He might know what’s inside ’is own ’ead, but he can’t see what’s in front of ’is own face. She forced her way in,’ was her explanation for Sara’s residency at the Master’s Lodge. ‘She got past you, didn’t she? And you know what a pig she is. Richard never met her before. Bet the poor sod’s rueing the day he set eyes on her now,’ Debs finished with a sniff.

Debs even had an answer for Richard’s lack of communication. ‘Look, Di, he lost his wife not long ago. And then he goes out with you just twice and all this ’appens. He’s just run back to the labs, that’s all. And who can blame ’im?’

Diana had doubts, even so. Angry though she was with Richard and Sara, she was most annoyed with herself. Had she been candid with Richard about her past in the first place, had she been honest with Debs about the divorce, none of this would have happened. Sara had merely exploited the opportunity Diana had handed her on a plate.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Debs exploded, when Diana hesitantly expressed this. ‘Stop blaming yourself, will you? That woman tried to ruin your life. Get angry. If you don’t, she wins and you’ll have to leave town,’ her neighbour baldly pointed out. ‘And with Rosie settled at school and you in your job, do you really want to do that? Start all over again, somewhere else?’

It was this that finally galvanised Diana. And so she was driving, this Saturday evening, towards Branston College. Her heart was thumping and her nerves were tense, but the loveliness of the scene outside the steamy windows impressed itself upon her nonetheless.

Christmas was coming, in this most Christmassy of towns. In the gathering darkness the college bells made ripples of sound over the riverside meadows. Candles glowed through the stained glass of the chapels. Through the window that was stuck open, Diana could hear the notes of organs winding out into the freezing air. Did she want to leave? No. Not at all.

She was nearing Branston now and her insides were knotting nervously around each other. She was driving past the university neurological department, Richard’s centre of operations. She felt a rush of nostalgia for the night he had shown it to her, that night which had started so well but then gone so wrong.

The building, as she glanced at it, seemed mostly dark. The scientists had all gone home, perhaps for the holidays. And Richard, of course, would be at the dinner.

Or was he? It looked as if there was a light on at the end where Richard worked. Perhaps he’d dropped in to see his worms after all, dinner or no dinner. Perhaps he wasn’t going to the dinner at all – which would make all her plans redundant, of course. Flooded with sudden hope, she was tempted for a second to turn round and drive back home.

But then what would Debs say? And, of the two of them – her new neighbour and her old – who did she fear facing the most?

Diana pressed her foot gently down on the accelerator and continued towards Branston.

How Richard wished he had spent the evening with his worms. They had started to do some interesting things of late and, dumb and sluggish though they were, they were more interesting than most of the people at the dinner.

He had, he felt, kept reasonably calm under the onslaught that was Sara Oopvard, and was remaining that way with the aid of a soothing glass of red and the reflection that she would, finally, be on her way back to London tomorrow.

Sara was, in any case, at a safe distance down the table next to the Bursar, who was drinking away his worries about the non-appearing Americans. From time to time she leant forward and tipped Richard an enormous, very off-putting wink.

However he personally might feel about it, the dinner was going well. The Incinerator looked almost reasonable by candlelight and the food, for once, was palatable. He looked down from the top table to the main body of the hall.

Tenebris Hasp was there; presumably he had managed to get Buster and Django to sleep. How, exactly, was something Richard didn’t want to think about.

Richard couldn’t see it at first, but he could hear it. And see it. People had begun to jump about and exclaim – scream, in some cases. The disturbance rippled down the long table; one after another people leapt up, like a Mexican wave.

‘Under the table!’ he heard a man’s voice shout.

‘There! It just grabbed me!’ shrieked the woman next to him.

Then came the crash of a chair being thrown back and a deranged-sounding, evidently very drunken, roaring male voice.

‘Buster! Django! Whazzahellyoudoinoutabed? Comeoutfromunnerzosetables! NOW!’

But Buster and Django, it seemed, had no intention of doing anything of the sort. They had now reached the top table and were about to complete their mission. Those to the right of Richard were on their feet with fury and Richard himself was about to find out why.

Small bodies now squirmed past his knees and he felt a sharp and painful jab in his crotch, accompanied by manic childish giggling. Nor did the mayhem end there. The unfortunate effect of goosing Sara Oopvard was for her head to tip forward into the candle flame. This immediately seized her big and much-sprayed hair, which in turn went up like a rocket.

Screams – the loudest of which was Sara’s – now filled the air. Richard looked about in panic, then grabbed the nearest glass of water and emptied it all over Sara Oopvard’s head.

Looking back afterwards, Richard could remember only vaguely the resulting disintegration of the entire dining room into noisy chaos. But he could recall with perfect clarity what happened next: the college porter walked rapidly towards him, followed by people in hi-vis jackets. Policemen. Paramedics.

Amber Piggott had been found dead in the bath.

Isabel had run out of Branston as soon as the emergency services arrived. They had crowded into the bathroom, panting and rustling in their hi-vis jackets and reflective strips, saying things like, ‘We’ll take over now, Madam.’

Isabel had let them. Left them to it. She had done her best, after all; she and Kate had dragged a heavy, slippery Amber out of the bath and, while Isabel had tried the kiss of life, Kate had run down the hall in her towel, screaming about the police and needing to find the porter.

It had been horrible, being left alone with the body. Blow and pump as Isabel might, no response had been forthcoming. Amber had lain there like a stranded mermaid, naked and shining and lifeless, her water-darkened hair streaming out across the floor.

‘Drugs,’ one of the paramedics had muttered. ‘Gotta be.’

Drugs! The word went through Isabel like a bolt of electricity. She felt as if she were waking up from something.

Drugs. Isabel remembered the last time she had seen Amber, unfocused of gaze and stumbling of gait. She had thought she was drunk, an impression Jasper had confirmed. ‘Pissed as a fart sometimes,’ he had said. ‘We all know she likes her champagne.’

Yes, Isabel knew that. But she knew next to nothing about drugs, or the signs someone was taking them. Did Jasper? There had been that joint, Isabel remembered, that night in her room . . .

She pushed these disloyal reflections violently away. How could she even think it? Jasper was Amber’s devoted friend. He would be devastated when he found out what had happened. She must tell him before anyone else.

He was at the Bullinger dinner, but where was that? At his college? She turned herself in the direction of St Alwine’s – and ran.

As before, Farthingale and Scavenger were sitting in the porter’s lodge drinking tea. A small fire roared in the grate. As Isabel burst in, chest heaving, they regarded her with a studied lack of interest.

‘In a rush, are we, Miss?’ This in Farthingale’s trademark sardonic manner.

Isabel forced down her dislike. She needed him to help her.

‘I’ve got to find Jasper De Borchy,’ she said, with as much control as she could summon.

Farthingale’s ironic eyes gleamed. ‘They all say that, Miss.’

Isabel felt murderous, but persevered. ‘He’s at a Bullinger Club dinner tonight. Where is it? Do you know?’

Farthingale turned heavily to his colleague. ‘Bullinger Club dinner tonight, Mr Scavenger?’

‘No, Mr Farthingale.’ There was amusement in Scavenger’s tone.

Isabel fought incipient hysteria. A tragedy had occurred and these vile porters were toying with her. She wanted to scream.

Farthingale blew out his mottled purple cheeks. ‘There’s the Bullinger Club Ball, of course.’

‘Indeed, Mr Farthingale.’

Jasper had never said it was a ball, Isabel thought. He had made it sound like a low-key dinner. But there could hardly be two Bullinger events on the same night. ‘Where is it?’ she asked, straight to the point.

‘The real question, Miss, is not “where”, but “whether”. Does it exist at all?’ Farthingale said.

Metaphysics now, a despairing Isabel thought. She felt like Alice in some twisted college-porter Wonderland. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said eventually.

‘Bullinger Balls don’t exist . . .’ Farthingale looked again at his sidekick.

‘Don’t exist,’ Scavenger repeated, on cue. ‘Except that they do,’ he added, with a sudden, terrifying grin that exposed a row of yellow tombstone teeth. ‘Although nobody knows where. Secret location.’ He tapped his large purple nose.

The Bakelite clock above that fierce little roaring fire indicated time was moving on. She was getting nowhere here. Isabel was about to turn on her heel and stomp out when a remark of Jasper’s about the porters shot through her mind: ‘They do anything you tell them to. If you slip them enough cash, that is.’

She rummaged in her bag. Her purse was empty apart from one last twenty-pound note, sent by Mum only this morning along with a sad little letter imploring her to be careful: ‘I never realised university was so expensive.’ It wasn’t university that was expensive, of course. It was Jasper.

Shoving Mum determinedly to the back of her mind, Isabel took out the money, put it down on the age-polished oak counter in front of Farthingale and Scavenger and raised her chin expectantly.

Farthingale was the first to react. ‘Ah,’ he said, putting out a meaty paw, taking the note and holding it up to the light. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, lowering it. ‘But we need to check.’

‘Some of the young gentlemen have in the past entertained an elastic concept of what constitutes legal tender,’ Scavenger added gravely.

The thick minute hand of the wall clock wobbled forward again. She felt her heart wobble in response. ‘Where is the party?’ Isabel growled.

Farthingale cleared his throat and sent a light, inquiring smile at Scavenger. Scavenger sent it back.

Farthingale spoke: ‘Is it not, Mr Scavenger, on this occasion, at Crewell Place, Crewell village?’

Scavenger put his bowler-hatted head on one side, seemingly to consider. ‘You may be right, Mr Farthingale – it being Lord Crewell’s turn to host.’