The Cambridge Theorem (18 page)

“I'm sorry. I haven't slept in two nights. I don't know what to do with myself. I just don't know what to do with myself.”

“Just tell me the truth,” said Smailes gently. “You are under no obligation to say anything, but I must tell you that anything you do say will be taken down and may be used in evidence. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“I went over there Tuesday night, as usual.”

“What time?"

“About ten past one. I go off duty at one Tuesdays and Thursdays. I usually go right over after I lock up the lodge.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“About three months, or so. Since Simon and I met.”

“How long have you worked at the college?”

“About six months.”

“Go on.”

“Well, I knocked on the door. I always do. And there was no reply. So I knocked again, and then I went in. And then I saw him.”

“What did you see?”

“He was hanged. Over by the window, from the plant hook.” Here Fenwick covered his face with his hands and began sobbing again. He regained himself slowly and drank again from the glass. Smailes waited.

“What else did you see?”

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“What did you see in the room? Any sign of struggle? Were all the lights on? Was the gas fire on?”

“I don't think there was any sign of struggle. I think I saw a plant on the floor, the one from the hook. The light on the desk was on I think, not the overhead light. I don't know about the fire. I'm sorry, but I panicked. I ran.”

“Ran where?”

“Just down the hall and the stairs. When I got to the court I started walking, in case anyone saw me and got suspicious. I don't think anyone did.”

“Where did you go then?”

“I walked out of the main gate and over to the market square and got a taxi home. I get the taxi fare you see, when I work late.”

“Alan, why didn't you tell the police, or the college authorities, about this?”

“I was scared. I knew I'd get the sack, you see, that people would get the wrong idea about me and Simon. There was nothing I could do. I could see he was dead.”

“What is the wrong idea? That you and Simon Bowles were romantically involved? It's not illegal, you know.” Smailes was unsure that Fenwick was not telling an edited version of Tuesday night's events.

“Simon and I were friends, that's all. I had only known him for a few months. But we had to be secretive about meeting, because it wasn't allowed by the college. I could get into trouble, you know.”

“Alan, are you gay?”

“I don't feel that's any of your business,” he said petulantly.

“So you say you were not romantically or sexually involved with Simon Bowles?”

“That's right. We were friends. I would go over to his room a couple of nights a week and we would just talk, maybe have a drink.” Smailes could not quite understand the preposterous denial, since the lesser offense would not pardon him at the college.

“Then what?”

“Then I would leave, walk over to the market and get a taxi home, like I said.”

“So how come the bedder, Mrs. Allen, says she saw you in the morning, on Bowles' corridor?”

“I suppose I stayed, a couple of times, on the floor, when it got too late for a taxi. They're gone, you know, by three.”

Smailes shook his head in exasperation. There was no point trying to get the wretched man to confess. It wouldn't matter to Hawken, anyway.

“Alan, what you did is extremely serious. Wilfully leaving the scene of a crime is a criminal offense. Failure to report is also a crime. Do you realize what you have done?”

“Well, I don't say I should have done it, but can't you see it my way? I panicked and ran. Then I stopped. I realized there was nothing I could do. Simon was obviously dead—you could tell by the way his body was, the angle of his head. It wasn't a crime, was it? Suicide isn't a crime, is it? And I knew that the bedder would find him in the morning. No one had seen me, had they? And what could I do, except get myself into trouble? I thought I would go into work next day and pretend I knew nothing about it. But I was too upset. I was very fond of Simon. I was too upset to go in, you see. And then I couldn't sleep again last night so I didn't go in again today. I'm sorry. I know I should have told someone. Only, I like my job. I don't want to lose it. You don't have to tell Mr. Beecroft, do you, officer?”

“He's the one who told me.”

“Mr. Beecroft? How did he know anything?”

“Apparently one of the other junior porters told him about your friendship with Bowles, after you didn't show up yesterday.”

“Ooh, that Michael Givens. I knew he suspected us.” Fenwick gave a theatrical pout. Smailes thought it ridiculous that this man should attempt to deny his sexuality, or the nature of his relationship with Bowles.

“Let me go over this again. You came off duty at one o'clock, and walked over to Bowles' room. You had been in the habit of doing this on Tuesday and Thursday nights, for two or three months. You knocked, and when there was no reply, you went in. You saw Bowles hanged and left in a panic. You think no one saw you arrive or leave. Is this correct?”

“Yes.”

“You didn't touch anything in the room?”

“No.”

“Or talk to anyone about what you saw?”

“No.”

“And you intended to keep quiet about what you saw, and go to work as normal. Only you were unable to because of your emotional condition.”

“Yes.”

“Alan, what instructions were you given, as the night porter, for dealing with emergency situations? To call the police?”

“Definitely not. First you tell the duty tutor, and they decide whether to call the police.”

“Who's that?”

“There is a tutor who sleeps in his rooms every night at the college during term. He's the duty tutor after the administration offices close. He makes all those kinds of decisions. The tutors rotate the duty every week.”

“Who was it two nights ago?”

“I don't know. I hadn't checked. I had already locked up the lodge and just kept going after I left Simon's room.”

“So, obviously, regardless of whether technically you have committed a crime, you did not perform your duties as they were expected of you.”

“No.” Fenwick was staring at the floor.

Smailes said nothing for a minute, and re-read his notes. “It's not my decision whether to charge you with anything, Alan. That's up to the Chief Superintendent. But you will have to come to the station and make a full statement. And you may be required to testify at the inquest. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Fenwick, without raising his eyes.

“And I will have to let Mr. Beecroft know that we have had this discussion. It'll be up to him to decide what to do with the information, you understand.”

“Yes.”

“So. Do you know why Simon Bowles killed himself?”

“Honest, officer, I've no idea. No idea.” He looked up at Smailes with angry, red-rimmed eyes. “If he was upset about something, I don't know why he didn't wait to talk to me about it.”

“Did he feel guilty about your friendship?”

“I don't think so. He felt frustrated that we couldn't be more open about it, that's all.”

“Did he tell you about any other relationships he had, about other men he would like to be, er, friendly with?” Smailes thought of the Giles Allerton theory.

“Definitely not. There was nobody else, for either of us.”

“How about problems with money, or drugs, anything?”

“Not at all. Simon was from a very good family.”

“Did Simon Bowles confide in you?”

“I thought so."

“Had he told you of anything that was bothering him lately?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you why he went down to London the day of his death?” asked Smailes mildly.

“It wasn't Tuesday. It was Monday, the day before. No, he just told me he was going down for the day.”

“How did he tell you?”

“The usual way. We left notes for each other in Simon's pigeon-hole. He left me a note when I came in Monday lunchtime. Said he would be back by Tuesday, ‘as usual.' That was our signal.”

“That you would meet as usual.”

“Yes.”

“How about his reason for missing the gathering at his sister's house on Sunday?”

“In Rickmansworth?” Fenwick seemed genuinely surprised. “I had no idea he was supposed to go there.”

“How about his latest research project, on communism at Cambridge?”

“I don't know what you're talking about, officer,” he said primly. Smailes had heard enough to know that Bowles did not confide in him in any significant way.

“Mr. Fenwick, I'd like you to come with me. To the station.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No. I'd like you to make a voluntary statement.”

Fenwick stood up and heaved a sigh. “All right. Let's get it over with. Shall I drive?”

“That your Mini outside?”

“Yes it is.”

“Make the payments on your salary, Alan?”

“I used to, just,” said Fenwick gloomily.

“No, I'll bring you back,” he said gently.

Fenwick walked to a wardrobe and extracted a yellow zippered leather jacket. Smailes doubted that he wore it to work.

G
EORGE DEARNLEY
removed his glasses and rubbed his face vigorously with his hand, then gave his jowls a strong tug. Then he put the glasses back on and pursed his lips. He looked at Smailes quizzically.

“You believe him, Derek?”

“Yes, I do, unfortunately.”

Dearnley looked down again at the printout of Fenwick's record, and the handwritten statement. Three arrests for vandalism, two while still a juvenile. One shop-lifting arrest nine months ago, from a clothing store. Hardly an exemplary citizen.

“So the Bowles kid hung himself between ten-thirty and one and we don't really know why. Except he was an unstable type, right? Fairy too?” asked Dearnley. Smailes nodded.

“So it's a question of whether we charge,” Dearnley looked down again at the statement, “Fenwick with failure to report, or maybe obstruction, something like that.”

“Yes”.

“Teach him a bloody lesson, wouldn't it?” Dearnley mused. Smailes said nothing.

“So what's the downside?” asked Dearnley, anticipating opposition.

“Well, you spoonfeed the bloody
Evening News
a tailor-made scandal, don't you?” said Smailes forcefully. “‘Dead student in midnight tryst with porter,' all over page one. When Fenwick's previous convictions come out, and that he was a regular visitor of the deceased, it'll be hard to maintain he was delivering a phone message, won't it? I'm not saying Fenwick doesn't deserve it, but it seems hard on the family.”

Smailes knew George would have to chew on this one. It had caused a minor scandal around Cambridge when George had left his second wife and set up home with Jill Wilde, who was the crime reporter for the
Evening News
and a well-known figure around the town. When they had both divorced and married each other, she had been forced to resign from the paper out of potential conflict of interest, and had eventually found a job on the crime desk of a Fleet Street daily. Smailes doubted she was entirely happy about it, though, commuting nearly three hours a day, and altering her career so George wouldn't have to alter his. So George probably had mixed feelings about the
Evening News
. Like all policemen, Dearnley had an intense distrust of the press in general, and had no wish to dish up a juicy and damaging story if it was avoidable. He probably also resented the management of the
News
for the way they had forced Jill out, inevitable though it had been. Smailes felt he was probably on firm ground.

“So you suggest?” asked Dearnley, disinterestedly.

“Tell the family how Fenwick found the body and panicked. Suppress the statement from the report to the coroner, and tell the family that we are doing so to avoid a scandal. Let the record show that the bedder was the first person to find the body. Let Fenwick take it in the neck from the people at St Margaret's. He'll be fired, which is probably enough punishment.”

“Yeah, except we can tell Baddeley what we want him to do. He'll toe the line.” Oscar Baddeley was the Cambridge coroner who would conduct the inquest. Like magistrates, coroners were simply private citizens of good character with no special medical or legal training. They usually deferred to the police in the strategy for conducting inquests, particularly a Chief Superintendent. Smailes realized while it would be hard to sell Baddeley on suppression of evidence simply to deny the press, he would probably accept the desirability of protecting the family, and no doubt the college, from unnecessary scandal. He would also appreciate the appeal to his discretion and compassion.

“Fenwick will have to know he's not going to be called, and agree to keep quiet. Will he do it?” As Smailes had hoped, Dearnley had picked up the ball and run with it.

“Sure,” said Smailes. “He'll be getting off light.”

“You mean yes, do you?” George, in particular, loathed his Americanisms.

“I mean yes, George,” said Smailes, smiling

“So what else? Can we give Baddeley any idea why he did it?”

“I don't think so. I've got to talk to this scientist guy tomorrow, who supervised him. Then the Myrtlefields people, I suppose, but I don't think we'll turn up anything specific. One thing worries me, though.”

Dearnley leant forward on his elbows and adopted his most paternal tone. “Say ‘concerned' Derek. ‘One thing concerns me.'”

“One thing concerns me,” he repeated, obediently.