Murder Is Academic (10 page)

Then several things happened very quickly. As the woman with the push-chair passed Aiden, her child dropped its book on the carpet. As if in an effort to escape me, Aiden took a step back. His foot skidded on the glossy cover of the book. The woman shouted. In an effort to avoid crashing into the child in its pushchair, Aiden twisted round. Hopelessly off-balance, he tried to right himself by grabbing a waist-high display stand full of books. As I moved forward, Aiden's foot shot out and caught me a glancing blow that knocked my right leg out from under me. I grabbed one of the aisle shelves but my weight carried me on. I slid along it, pushing the books before me. At the last moment I managed to steady myself, but it was too late to stop the books. A dozen fat blue-and-white paperbacks shot off the end of the shelf just as the display stand to which Aiden was clinging toppled over. It hit the floor with a thud that echoed through the store.

There were a few seconds of complete silence. They were broken by the outraged screams of the child whose carelessness had resulted in Aiden lying on top of a crushed display stand, surrounded by copies of the W.H. Smith Romance of the Month.

Chapter Seven

I glanced at my watch. A few minutes after ten; Rebecca was late. Her latest essay, her personal file and my own book,
Introduction to the Victorian Novel,
lay on the desk in front of me on top of a litter of other papers. I leafed through the file. The problems had begun in the previous academic year: work handed in late, poor grades, missed seminars. I wasn't looking forward to my interview with her, but I'd been through this with many students over the years: I knew how it would go and what I could hope to achieve.

I turned round on my swivel chair and looked out of the window. It was the end of the first week of term. The October day was bright and crisp, yet there was something a little sad about the thinness of the sunshine and the quality of the shadows. The lawn was now dappled with yellowing leaves. Yet the beginning of the academic year had also brought a sense of renewal: a chance to begin again.

Margaret's picture and her rolled-up rug were still propped up in the corner of the office – I should have taken those round to Malcolm weeks ago, and I resolved to do it that weekend – but there were no other traces of her in the office. The shelves were overflowing with my books, and the desk was covered in letters, memos and student essays. It was easy enough to take over her office, but how was I measuring up in other ways? I sighed. It was impossible to imagine the cool and orderly Margaret embarking on a chase through the streets of Cambridge ending in one of her colleagues falling flat on his back on the floor of W.H. Smith's. I felt both amused and embarrassed when I thought about it. I hadn't told anyone except Stephen, and I was pretty sure that Aiden wouldn't have spread it around: too much sense of his own dignity. The episode had ended with Aiden promising to produce an outline of his future research. It hadn't appeared yet.

I turned my attention to my book on the Victorian novel and opened it where I had marked a place with a strip of paper, I read a few lines.

The evangelicalism of the first half of the nineteenth century was a potent force in the lives of many writers and thinkers. Even those such as George Eliot and John Ruskin, who rejected the evangelical faith of their childhoods, could not entirely throw off its influence. For George Eliot, duty remained an absolute moral imperative, even when God had become ‘inconceivable' and immortality ‘unbelievable'.

There was a knock on the door and Rebecca came in. I looked at my watch. Ten minutes late. She caught the gesture, but didn't say anything. I examined her face. Was this just sloppy timekeeping, or a carefully judged gesture of defiance? Probably the latter, but I decided to let it go: better to keep my powder dry.

Rebecca sat down in the chair next to my desk and anchored two curtains of mousy hair behind her ears. We contemplated each other in silence. Her large, smooth freckled face made me think of an egg. She had prominent green eyes with heavy lids. Her mouth was small and pursed, a little sulky in its set.

I picked up her essay and read out the first few lines aloud.

The Evangelicalism of the early nineteenth century was an important force in the lives of many writers and thinkers. Even those like George Eliot and John Ruskin, who later rejected the Evangelical faith off their childhood, remained under it's influence. For George Eliot, Duty remained an absolute moral value, even though God had become ‘inconcievable' and Immortality ‘unbelievable'.

‘Can you explain to me, Rebecca, how it is that the first page of your essay is virtually identical to the beginning of Chapter Four of my own book?'

I gestured to where it lay open on the desk.

Her eyes flickered away from mine. ‘It's not exactly the same.'

‘Oh, come on. The odd word has been changed and you've introduced some mistakes in spelling and punctuation, unintentionally no doubt. Nothing more. And this hasn't been the only problem with your work lately, has it?' I gestured towards her file. ‘Is there anything you want to tell me? A personal problem, perhaps…?'

I expected to hear of a broken love affair, an illness in the family, or parents divorcing. She said nothing.

‘All right, I'm going to give you one more chance. Go away, put your books to one side, and rewrite this in your own words. I want to see you back here on Monday morning at nine o'clock with a new essay.'

‘By Monday!' she burst out. ‘I've got rowing practice this afternoon and there's a race tomorrow.'

‘Academic work takes precedence over sport, you know that, Rebecca.'

She put a hand on the edge of my desk and drummed her fingers. I let my eyes drop to her hand and then raised them to meet her gaze. After a moment she looked away and removed her hand, but her chin was still lifted defiantly and her small mouth was tight with anger.

The interview wasn't going as I had expected. I was surprised by her intransigence. Students don't mean to cheat as a rule, and they quickly apologize when they realize what they've done wrong. And even if they do mean to cheat, they're usually smart enough to play dumb and put on a show of being contrite.

‘If I don't have this essay by next week, and if I'm not satisfied that it's all your own work, I'll have to inform the Master. You could be suspended from the college.'

Finally I seemed to have got through to her. Her lips were still pressed tightly together, but her eyes were brimming. One single tear spilled over and wound its way down her cheek.

‘What is it, Rebecca?' I asked more gently. I took a tissue from the box on my desk and handed it to her.

Her face crumpled. The corners of her mouth went down in a grimace. She looked like a child about to have a tantrum. For a few moments she struggled to speak. Eventually a single word emerged.

‘Lucy,' she said.

My heart stopped for a moment, and then lurched. Then I thought perhaps she didn't mean Lucy Hambleton. Names go in fashions and the college was full of Lucys, Emmas and Kates.

‘Rebecca, you'd better tell me what this is all about.'

‘I thought she loved me. She did love me until … until that woman came along,' she wailed. ‘It wasn't fair. She tried to hide it from me. And she'd still be alive, Lucy would still be alive if—'

She was almost incoherent in her anger and misery.

‘If what, Rebecca?'

With a visible effort, she got herself back under control. ‘If she hadn't come to this rotten place!'

She reached over and took her essay off the desk. In front of my astonished eyes she ripped it in two.

‘I'm not going to do this fucking essay Just you try and make me. I can make trouble for you and this bloody college, and don't you forget it!'

She grabbed her rucksack and ran out of the room. I got to the door just in time to see her vanish round the corner of the corridor and hear her feet running down the stairs.

*   *   *

‘Thanks.'

‘What for?' Stephen asked.

‘For not saying, “I told you so”.'

We were in The Free Press, a small pub in the tangle of little streets and terraces of Regency houses to the north of Parker's Piece. It's a rowing pub, and the wooden panelling is crowded with memorabilia. Faded photographs of young men in blazers looked down on us, and above the threshold of the tiny inner bar, where we were having an early lunch, was the blade of an oar on which the names of a long-gone boat team were painted in white. It was very busy – it always is – but that makes it a good place to talk. No one can hear you above the hubbub.

‘I won't say I'm not tempted,' Stephen admitted. ‘I've thought all along that someone somewhere probably knew about Lucy and Margaret. It's difficult to be as discreet as all that – especially when you're mad about somebody.'

‘I know, I know. I just so much hoped that it was all in the past now and that Malcolm wouldn't have to know.'

‘This Rebecca – you think she had something going with Lucy herself?'

‘Looked that way. Stephen…'

‘Yep?'

‘There's no question of letting Rebecca get away with this. If she doesn't write a new essay, I'll have to report her to Lawrence. I'm wondering if I should get in first. If it's going to come out anyway, better he doesn't hear it from an angry student.'

Stephen said, ‘I shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to go to Lawrence. From what you said, it's not clear how much Rebecca knows. And, by the way, Cass, I'd certainly steer clear of saying anything about the letters. If you
were
ever brought to book over those, and I don't see how you could be, then you could always claim you were acting within your powers as Margaret's literary executor.'

I was surprised and amused by this pragmatism. ‘Is that the solicitor speaking?'

He put on a look of mock solemnity. ‘My dear, don't you know you should never do anything without consulting your solicitor? And now, another drink?'

‘Better not. I've got to cycle back to college and I'm seeing Merfyn this afternoon. I'll need all my wits about me for that.'

‘Coffee then.'

‘Not for me, but get me a packet of Benson and Hedges, would you?'

‘Cass!'

‘Just this once. I absolutely
must
have a fag. Just one. You can keep the rest of the packet for me.'

He raised his eyebrows in a pantomime of reluctant agreement.

‘It's the ritual as much as anything,' I explained, when he brought them back to the table. I stripped off the cellophane and shook a cigarette out of the packet.

‘Helps me get my thoughts in order.'

He nodded and pocketed the packet. I lit up and took a deep drag. We sat in thought for a few minutes.

‘I'm supposed to be seeing her on Monday. She'll have had a chance to calm down by then. I'll try and find out exactly what she meant. If she turns up.'

‘She might well be regretting it already. Remember that Tom Lehrer song?' Stephen grinned. ‘“Plagiarize, plagiarize, let no one else's work evade your eyes”? You know what amazes me? That she had the chutzpah to crib from your own book!'

I wasn't enjoying my cigarette as much as I'd expected. I stubbed it out without finishing it.

‘It's happened before,' I said. ‘At least she didn't produce a copy of my book from her bag and ask me to autograph it for her! One student that I was ticking off for something similar actually did that.' I looked at my watch. ‘Better be getting back to college.'

‘Wait a moment,' Stephen put his hand on my arm. He reached into his briefcase and brought out something wrapped in tissue-paper.

‘I saw this in the antique shop opposite the museum.'

From the way he handed it to me, I could tell it was fragile. It was a shallow, saucer-shaped porcelain bowl decorated with a grainy monochrome print in grey, a little crude but full of charm. A kneeling woman in an empire-line dress that exposed one breast was putting the yoke of a miniature chariot around her neck. The small boy in the chariot was brandishing a toy whip.

Stephen was watching my face.

‘It's lovely,' I said.

‘I could see it was like the others you've got. “Maternal recreation” you said those prints are called?'

I leant forward and kissed him lightly. He put an arm round me and gave me a longer, firmer kiss. I felt a passionate response that took me be surprise.

‘I've got to go back to work,' I said, pulling back and laughing.

*   *   *

As soon as I saw Merfyn I knew that something was wrong. Cathy had let him into my office and he was slumped in one of the armchairs waiting for me. He looked like a schoolboy called up before the headmaster. One leg was twisted round the other and his hands were tucked defensively under his thighs. When I caught his eye, he immediately looked away.

He said, ‘I might as well tell you straightaway, Cass, that I haven't got anything more to show you.' The remnant of his Welsh accent was far more in evidence than usual.

I sat down opposite him, trying to disguise my annoyance. ‘Merfyn, don't you realize how important this is for the future of the department, and for you?'

‘Of course I do.' He was impatient. ‘And it isn't as if I haven't been working hard. I've done hardly anything else all summer. In fact I wrote several chapters.'

‘So what's the problem?'

He didn't reply. As I sat regarding Merfyn, a familiar feeling swept over me, a compound of embarrassment, weariness and a a profound longing to be somewhere else. If only I could close my eyes and open them again to find that I had miraculously been transported to a desert island. Actually, I reflected, it didn't even have to be a desert island. Anywhere would do, anywhere that wasn't here.

Get a grip, I told myself, you're in charge here. I sat up straight, too quickly perhaps because specks of light danced before my eyes and my head reeled. I lowered my head and closed my eyes.