The Age of Treachery (7 page)

“That’s really none of your business, sir,” said Barber. But Forrester knew he had the upper hand again, because Barber had expected him to know.

Why had he expected him to know? For the moment it didn’t matter: Barber’s blunder allowed Forrester to be honest and co-operative and to move away from any discussion of Margaret Clark’s love life.

“Listen, Inspector. I think someone has misled you. It may well be that Lyall was going to be awarded the Rotherfield rather than Gordon Clark, but it was not public knowledge and I’m as certain as I can be that Gordon hadn’t heard because, as you imply, he would almost certainly have confided in me. It may seem to be a motive to you, but I think you’re probably quite mistaken.”

“So what
was
the motive, then?” said Barber, as though completely at sea, and Forrester was almost tempted to supply one until he caught himself in time. “There wasn’t one!” he said. “Gordon didn’t do it.”

“So who did?” asked Barber.

“I have no idea,” said Forrester.

“Come, come,” said Barber. “You’re a Fellow of this college; you’ve been associated with it since 1936, you were present at High Table when the altercation broke out between Clark and the victim, you were one of those who found the body. And you’re trying to tell me you have no idea what was going on?”

“The date 1936 is correct,” said Forrester. “But I joined up in 1940 and only came back to Oxford this year. There’s plenty about what goes on in this college I simply don’t know.” He stood up. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I have a tutorial to give. If you need to continue this, can we do it at another time?”

There was a beat, and Barber apparently came to a decision and stood up too. “I look forward to doing just that,” he said, picked up his hat, and left the room.

Forrester heaved a long, silent sigh of relief and went back to the window to watch the detective disappear across the quad, leaving a trail of footprints in the snow.

Forrester conducted his tutorial and several more afterwards with half his mind on ancient history and the other half on Gordon Clark. Part of him hated suppressing evidence which pointed to his friend’s guilt; part of him hated the fact that he had jumped to the conclusion that his friend was guilty.

And yet what other explanation was there? Clark had hated Lyall, with good reason; their antagonism had reached boiling point at High Table, and Lyall had been killed in Clark’s rooms. If he were in Barber’s shoes, Forrester had to admit, he too would have reached the same conclusion. By mid-afternoon Forrester’s unease had reached a point where he knew he had to speak to his friend direct. The police had released him after questioning and no arrest warrant had yet been issued. Minutes later Forrester was bicycling through Oxford to Clark’s house.

It was late afternoon and the winter darkness had already arrived, but none of the lights were on. Margaret was at her job at the Bodleian Library, and when Forrester entered he found Gordon sitting in an armchair in the front room staring into an empty grate. His only acknowledgement as Forrester came in was a slight tilt of the head.

“This is a bit of a nuisance, isn’t it?” said Forrester, as lightly as he could.

“A bloody nuisance,” said Clark listlessly.

And then they sat in silence for a while.

“The police interviewed me this morning,” said Forrester.

Clark looked up sharply.

“At Margaret’s request I didn’t pass on anything you and I spoke about the other day.”

“Margaret’s request?”

“She asked to see me last night. She begged me not to reveal anything about her and Lyall.”

“And you agreed?”

“I did.”

Clark considered this for a moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She shouldn’t have put you in that position.”

“Perhaps not,” replied Forrester. “But she did and I agreed. So.”

There was a pause.

“Thank you,” said Clark. Then he grinned a death’s-head grin. “But you know they don’t even need that as a motive? They think I killed him because he was going to get the Rotherfield Lectureship.”

“Yes, they told me. That was a bit of a facer. I’d no idea Lyall had been given it.”

“The irony is I probably bloody well would have wanted to strangle him if I’d known, but I didn’t.”

“It’s absurd he was preferred over you,” said Forrester. “Who was behind that?”

Clark shrugged. “I have to say in my present situation the question isn’t uppermost in my mind.” He turned urgently to Forrester. “But I want to be absolutely clear about one thing: I did not kill David Lyall. I know what I said to you about wanting to – but it wasn’t the literal truth or anything like it. I was furious with him, I was furious with Margaret; but I couldn’t kill anybody over such a thing. I just… couldn’t. Do you believe that?” He turned towards the cheerless fireplace. “I did not kill David Lyall,” he repeated.

Forrester paused. “Good,” he said at last. “I’m glad to hear that.” He shivered slightly in the cold of the room. “So what the hell
did
happen?”

“If you’re asking me how come he was in my rooms and who stabbed him and threw him through the window, I haven’t a clue,” said Clark. “I went home after that bloody awful High Table and had a blistering row with Margaret, drank half a bottle of whisky and went to bed. I knew nothing about what had happened until the police came knocking at the door.”

Forrester sat there, allowing this new version of events to sink in. Despite everything he had heard and seen, he was certain that his friend was telling the truth. “You didn’t speak to Lyall after High Table?”

“No.”

“Did you see him?”

“No.”

“You didn’t see him with Alan Norton, for example?”

“Alan Norton?”

“Remember the row he had with Norton at High Table?”

“I’d completely forgotten it.”

“About Norton being a fellow traveller.”

“Good God, it’d completely gone out of my head. But surely that wouldn’t have been enough for Norton to murder him?”

“Who knows?” said Forrester.

“Did you suggest that to the police?”

“No. I didn’t want to appear to be trying to protect you. There’s plenty of other people who can tell them about Lyall’s row with Norton.”

“But could Norton really have done it?”

“I don’t know. He was certainly angry. Did you see him at all, after High Table?”

“No. As I said, I came straight home.”

“Alright,” said Forrester. “Let’s try another tack. Have you any idea how Lyall came to be in your rooms?”

“None.”

“You hadn’t asked to meet him to discuss Margaret?”

“I had not,” said Clark. Then a surprised expression came over his face and he leaned towards Forrester. “Listen, I made a mistake just now about Norton; the fact is I did see him after High Table. He was walking away down the South Cloister.”

“Which leads to your stairs.”

“Among other places.”

“Like Lyall’s rooms.”

“Yes. But Norton couldn’t have—”

“Perhaps not, but if
you
didn’t kill Lyall, Gordon, someone else must have.”

“But surely not Norton.”

“Alright. Here’s another thing you should know: Haraldson was in Lyall’s room that night.”

“What? The Norwegian?”

“I found him there myself, knocked out cold.”

“Good God. So could he have—”

“I don’t think so,” said Forrester. “This was after the murder and I know he was in the Lodge reading an Icelandic saga to the rest of us when Lyall was killed.”

“Hmm. He looked like the sort of chap who’d demolish anybody who got in his way. But what was he doing in Lyall’s rooms?”

“God knows.”

“Do you think whoever bashed him also killed Lyall?”

“Possibly,” said Forrester. “Of course the police might say it was you.”

“How could it have been? For one thing Haraldson’s about a foot taller than I am.”

“You could have been standing on something.”

“Hardly.”

“Nevertheless that’s what the police will probably claim. They seem fairly determined you did it.”

“I’m in a mess, aren’t I?” said Clark.

“Have you called your solicitor?”

“Not yet.”

“I think you should do that.”

“He was my father’s man. He must be about seventy-five.”

“Ask him to recommend someone younger.”

“I shouldn’t need a lawyer! I’m innocent.”

Forrester was about to answer this objection when the doorbell rang. Forrester went to answer it – and found Inspector Barber and a sergeant on the doorstep. Barber gave Forrester a hard look before pushing past him into the house. By the time Forrester had followed him in the detective was already speaking to Gordon.

“Gordon Alistair Clark, I have here a warrant for your arrest for the murder of David Patrick Lyall of Barnard College, Oxford, on the night of January 13th. You are free to remain silent but anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you.”

Clark fought to retain his composure.

“I did not do it,” he said at last. “My wife has told you I was at home with her.”

“Unfortunately,” said Barber, “it seems that alibi is false. We have two witnesses who testify that at the time of the murder your wife was seen in another place entirely. If you want to pack one or two things, sir, we have a police car waiting outside.”

Clark looked at Forrester – but there was nothing either of them could think of to say.

Margaret Clark came home just after the police had gone and when Forrester told her what Barber had said she became wildly hysterical, repeating over and over again that she had been at home with Clark when she said she was. Inwardly furious, knowing she needed someone with her and determined not to be that person, Forrester had taken her address book and practically forced her to give him the name of a woman colleague who could come round; he also called her doctor and asked for him to bring a sedative.

While he was waiting for the doctor he called Clark’s solicitor and arranged to see him, and when Margaret’s friend from the Bodleian arrived he left at once, cycling furiously through the snowy streets, oblivious now to their calm and beauty.

Clark’s solicitor’s offices were in a picturesquely twisted, half-timbered building and Clark’s solicitor seemed to have been designed to match. He was an elderly man who spent most of the time while Forrester was speaking to him nervously twisting a pipe cleaner into the shape of a cat, and at the end of the recital had nothing to say except, “Oh dear, oh dear.” With tact and persistence Forrester requested that a younger member of the practice take over the case, and then sat down with him. But it was still awkward: the proffered candidate, Peter Nestleton, was certainly younger, but also stolid and unimaginative.

On the other hand he seemed competent and concerned. As Forrester listened to him he remembered that competence was all that was required of Clark’s solicitor; the key to saving his friend would be the defence counsel he engaged, and that could wait for later. But as he watched Nestleton set off for the police station Forrester did not feel any lifting of his spirits. He knew the appropriate people would soon be doing all the appropriate things to comply with the demands of the system. He also felt it very probable that however thorough and conscientious they were, in the end Gordon Clark would hang for a crime he did not commit.

* * *

Ken Harrison was waiting for him when he got back to his rooms and for a moment Forrester stood looking at him, trying to remember what the hell he was supposed to be tutoring him about. Then, apologising for his distraction, he asked him to read his essay out loud. Instead, Harrison brought out a hip flask.

“I hope this isn’t too much of a cheek, but it’s a single malt – and you look as if you need it.” Harrison handed him the flask and as he tipped it back Forrester felt the peaty liquid spread its warmth in the pit of his stomach.

“Yes,” he said. “Good idea, Harrison. Thank you.”

“I was very sorry to hear about Dr. Clark,” said Harrison, settling himself into the chair on the other side of the fireplace.

“You know he’s been arrested?”

“The college is buzzing with it.”

Forrester drank more whisky. “I believe he’s innocent,” he said.

Harrison nodded. “He’s always seemed a pretty good stick to me. But things look rather black for him just now, don’t they?” Forrester handed him back the flask and Harrison returned it to his pocket. “Who do you think did it then, Dr. Forrester?”

Forrester looked at him sharply. Harrison had drawn his attention to a simple truth: the only certain way of keeping Gordon Clark from the gallows was to find who
had
killed David Lyall.

“I have no idea,” he replied. “But I intend to find out.” The words came out without thinking, but as he spoke he knew that was exactly what he had to do.

“Good for you,” said Harrison. “And – I hope it doesn’t sound presumptuous – I’d like to do anything I can to help.”

“You?” said Forrester.

“Well, I’m sure you know lots of people who’d be more use—”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. But I can’t ask you to do that. I’m supposed to be tutoring you in ancient history. And you’re supposed to be studying for a degree.”

“I can do both. Anyway, this afternoon you’re obviously preoccupied with this. Why don’t we just talk about it and leave the Greeks for next week?”

Forrester considered this.

“This isn’t just an excuse to get out of reading your essay, is it?”

“No,” replied Harrison, equably. “I’ve written it.” He took out the pages. “I’ll leave it behind; you can read it when I’ve gone. Or I can read it to you now – I really don’t mind.”

“No,” said Forrester. “I’ll take you up on your offer. Actually, it’ll be quite a relief to talk.”

And as he said the words Forrester knew that it would be, because Harrison was exactly the sort of stolid, unflappable comrade you would want to have in the proverbial foxhole. Forrester had been in plenty of proverbial foxholes during the past five years, and the truth was he had rarely had someone with him who had Harrison’s oddly comforting qualities. No matter that the man was technically his student – he knew he needed him. “Tell me what you want to know,” he said.