Mr Campion's Visit

by Mike Ripley

‘Those two again,’ sighed Dr Downes, shaking his head. ‘Still, at least they can argue in their own language and there is less collateral damage on innocent ears.’

  ‘The blonde lady is Chilean?’ Campion asked casually.

  ‘No. Stephanie Silva, or Estephanie, to be precise, is a lecturer in Spanish and linguistics, and those two are always having rather heated arguments about academic priorities. I just wish they would have them in private.’

  ‘I thought academic dispute was one of the cornerstones of a university education,’ said Campion. ‘Not that it was ever very high on the agenda at my alma mater.’

  ‘They be fighting over that blasted computer again,’ Meade contributed, now drawn closer to the window to get a better view.

  ‘Computer? Are they teaching it Spanish?’

  ‘Mr Meade means computer time,’ explained Dr Downes. ‘Our Computing Centre may be state of the art, but with so many demands on it … Access to the mainframe has to be rationed.’

  ‘And some want a bigger ration than others,’ said Gerontius in a tomb-side voice.

  ‘And the striking Miss Silva down there,’ Campion’s forefinger thudded against the glass again, ‘who seems to be getting more and more agitated by the second, needs the computer to teach students Spanish? What have you got down there? Some sort of electronic Tower of Babel?’

  ‘Not to teach the language,’ Downes said patiently, ‘but for research into linguistics. Textual analysis by computer programme is the coming thing.’

  ‘And it vies for computer time with the professor’s plate tectonics? No, please do not try to explain any further, I am already out of my depth and was never a good swimmer in technical waters.’

  ‘Jack Szmodics says the rows between them two were something to behold last year,’ Meade continued in sepulchral tone. ‘Almost came to blows, some say.’

  ‘I think it just has,’ said Campion calmly.

  Down below in the piazza, the taller blonde woman suddenly drew her right arm back and swung the open palm of her hand against the bearded cheek of the smaller man, who appeared to be in mid-rant. The whole pantomime was conducted in silence to those watching from the sixth-floor kitchen, but when the blow connected, Perez-Catalan’s head snapped to the side and he took an involuntary step backwards. It was clear, even from their elevated observation point, that the slap had at least stopped the professor talking. There would have been little point in him continuing as the woman immediately stalked off and disappeared into the throng of students and staff crossing the piazza, almost none of whom gave the altercation a second glance.

  ‘Academic disputes can get a little heated sometimes,’ said Downes weakly. ‘Shall we make our way down to ground level?’

  ‘Yes, I really must be making tracks,’ said Campion.

  To save the vice chancellor’s blushes, Mr Campion did not remark further on the incident, though he was sorely tempted to say that, while his experience of academic fisticuffs was limited, when a woman slapped a man like that in public, there was far more to it than the distribution of computer time.

  As the trio left the kitchen and began to descend the windowless stairwell, a door behind and above them opened and Campion caught the murmur of soft female voices.

  ‘There’s a stroke of luck, Campion,’ said Downes, looking over his shoulder. ‘You must meet Tabitha, one of our lecturers. She has the flat at the top of the pyramid, so technically we are in her domain.’

  Campion paused his descent of the stairs and, leaning back against the concrete wall, turned to see the outline of two female figures busy locking the door of the flat they had just left while whispering to each other. When they saw the three men several steps below them, they paused and, had the lighting been less harsh, Campion was sure he would have seen them blushing.

  ‘Tabitha, come and meet the new university Visitor, Albert Campion,’ Downes called.

  ‘Yes, of course, Vice Chancellor,’ the taller of the female shapes answered – somewhat nervously, Campion thought – as they descended.

  ‘This is Tabitha King, one of our youngest and brightest lecturers,’ said Downes, clearly with pride.

  ‘A geologist if I’m not mistaken,’ said Mr Campion, shaking her hand and noticing the strength of the woman’s grip. Standing a step above him, she was as tall as Campion and faced him at unblinking eye level. Her dark brown hair had been cut short, almost military style, so that any grooming required could be done by splayed fingers.

  ‘You are not, but how did you know?’

  Campion picked up a trace of an accent; northern, possibly Lancashire, but an accent that had been deliberately diluted.

  ‘The vice chancellor mentioned your name yesterday; in utterly glowing terms, I might add, as a shining light in earth sciences – or should that be a diamond? Plus, I have already met your loyal student, Bev.’ Campion waved a hand to indicate the second female – smaller, younger, bespectacled and definitely blushing – to Dr Downes. ‘And, Vice Chancellor, allow me to introduce one of your keenest first-years, Beverley Gunn-Lewis, all the way from New Zealand. Bev, this is Dr Downes – he’s a good bloke and not hard yakka at all, as I think you’d say.’

  The girl nodded, said a barely audible ‘Hello’, then looked towards her companion.

  ‘Bev and I were going over her timetable and seminar choices,’ said Tabitha King. ‘Now I was going to show her the Circus, where she is welcome to be appalled at the food on offer.’

  It took Campion a moment to recall that the Circus was the refectory complex, which housed the canteen, pub and a coffee bar.

  ‘I’m sure the food’s not that bad. It can’t be worse than the school dinners I had to suffer.’

  ‘Try being a vegetarian,’ said Tabitha grimly.

  ‘You have my sympathies. Let us not delay you,’ said Campion, indicating that the two females should precede them; as they squeezed by, he noticed that young Miss Gunn-Lewis refused to meet his eye, keeping her ornate spectacles firmly pointed downwards towards the lobby. When he spoke to her, it was to the back of her descending head.

  ‘Settling in all right, are we, Beverley? Get your accommodation sorted out?’

  ‘After a fashion,’ the girl said without turning her head. ‘I wanted to be here in Hutton, but that plan went down the gurgler ’cos I didn’t get on the waiting list early enough. So they put me in Babbage.’

  ‘Babbage is almost next door, my dear,’ said Dr Downes sympathetically, ‘and I’m afraid Hutton is our most popular residence.’

  In Campion’s ear, Mr Meade whispered, ‘It’s nearer the bar.’

  They reached the lobby and the women quickened their pace and took the path to the right without a cheery wave, let alone a formal goodbye.

  ‘I think I understood most of that, Vice Chancellor,’ Campion mused. ‘Hutton is the name of this pyramid block and presumably Babbage is the name of another one.’

  ‘Quite correct. Allow me to show you the others, it won’t take a minute and we can walk back to the car park via the library. Gerry will nip on ahead to get your bag from the house if you really need to get off.’

  ‘Be a pleasure, sir,’ intoned the head porter, as if it was anything but.

  Dr Downes led the way along the path which linked the four pyramidal halls of residence, enjoying his role as a tour guide.

  ‘Hutton you have seen, then comes Chomsky, Babbage and finally Durkheim. Hutton is the most popular being, as Meade implied, closest to the refectory and Durkheim probably the least popular because it’s nearest the library, though perhaps that’s too cynical a view of the modern student.’

  ‘Cynical, but accurate,’ Campion said with a smile, ‘but not limited to today’s undergraduates. I was at the end of my second year before I realized there was a library, and it has clearly left my education wanting. Noam Chomsky I’ve heard of, though please don’t test me on his theories of linguistics. Émile Durkheim was one of the founders of sociology and possibly French, I believe, but aga
in, no questions please. Charles Babbage, I know, is said to have invented the computer, though I came across a couple of chaps in the war who could perhaps claim a share in that honour, though they weren’t allowed to talk about it and neither should I. But Hutton is, I’m afraid, a new one on me.’

  ‘James Hutton was an eighteenth-century Scotsman and is thought of as the father of geology.’

  ‘Hence Beverley’s interest – she’s clearly dedicated to her subject. Remiss of me I know, but I never thought of geology as a popular subject among young ladies.’

  Dr Downes paused, turned on his guest and screwed up his face in mock puzzlement. ‘But isn’t your wife, the Lady Amanda, quite a famous aeronautical engineer?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid she is.’

  ‘Surely that was an unusual career choice for a woman of her class?’

  ‘Well, yes it was, but I’m immensely proud of her achievements and she has always had my undying support. I never really had a choice in the matter because I was – and still am – in love with her.’

  Dr Downes coughed, as if with embarrassment. ‘I have to admit that love – no, not love, infatuation – has something to do with female applications for courses in our Earth Sciences department, where we have a far higher proportion of girls than any other similar school in the country.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t follow,’ said Campion, ‘unless you mean that Professor Perez-Catalan is some sort of heart-throb or sex symbol.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I do mean,’ said the vice chancellor. ‘The man is a magnet for the opposite sex.’

  ‘Really?’ Campion could not keep the surprise out of his voice.

  ‘I know,’ said Downes with something of a cross between admiration and resignation, ‘you wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you? Yet he has an amazing success rate with the ladies. Short, hairy, and can’t string three words together without flapping his arms around like a demented windmill, plus he has absolutely no morals.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s the key.’

  ‘I really wouldn’t know. Even my wife says he has an air of dynamism,’ said Downes with a nervous laugh, ‘which makes him attractive, plus a radical bent, always saying that science should be “for the people”, whatever that means. He also has, I am led to believe, quite a success rate with the ladies, and seems to have no compunction about stringing one, or even two, along while stepping out with a third. Of course, we discourage liaisons with undergraduates, but one never knows …’

  Mr Campion regretted – briefly – that Big Gerry Meade had left them, for he was sure the head porter would have had an opinion on the matter, if not certain juicy details. He dismissed the thought, reasoning that details of such thing, however juicy, were beyond the remit of a university Visitor and it would be indelicate to pursue the subject further, so he changed it.

  ‘Your architect has a fondness for basic shapes,’ he said airily. ‘From the air the campus must look like one of those baby’s shape-sorter toys, where they have cylinders and squares and triangles and polygons, and a frame with the appropriately shaped hole through which to push them. Sometimes you get a little wooden hammer with the set, so the child can bash them if they don’t fit. Keeps a toddler happy for hours, though it can get noisy for the parents.’

  ‘I never thought of the campus that way before,’ Downes replied, ‘though one right-wing newspaper did call the university “Dr Downes’s Playground” because we offer modern rather than traditional courses.’

  ‘Yes, I read that piece in The Times,’ said Campion. ‘The bishop sent me a cutting.’

  The vice chancellor’s shoulders sank, as if under the bishop’s weight.

  ‘He sent me one too. The consensus, however, was that a modern university should have modern architecture. There was absolutely no point in trying to mimic Oxbridge colleges or Ivy League universities, plus, with other new universities setting up, we had to be distinctive. I think our pyramids – four for now but others are planned as we grow – are certainly distinctive.’

  ‘That they are,’ Campion agreed, ‘and their shape and proximity to each other make them an ideal amplifier.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Just a theory, but if one had a trumpet or perhaps a cornet, and played it out of a window at a certain height, the sound would bounce off the neighbouring pyramid and carry all over the campus, even as far as Black Dudley.’

  ‘Oh dear, you suffered from our Phantom Trumpeter. Did he wake you?’

  ‘Midnight, on the dot. Got to give him marks for punctuality, and he had quite a nice tone, though I hope his repertoire extends beyond the “Last Post”. However well executed, it’s far too sad and funereal for young students who should have no reason to be sad.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting he takes requests, are you, Campion? The chap’s a damn nuisance, but you’re right about the acoustics. Mr Meade and his porters tried to pin the little hooligan down all last term but failed to locate him.’

  ‘If you really want to catch him,’ grinned Campion, ‘then I’d look for someone who has a room on the third floor of one of the pyramids, almost certainly a male, is a third-year – he’s established enough to have flyers printed – and is likely to be connected to the student Jazz Club.’

  Dr Downes blinked twice before responding, ‘I’ll pass that on to the porters.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t be too hasty, Vice Chancellor; it could be the start of a university tradition, and you know how keen the bishop is on those. Also, our Phantom Trumpeter is fairly harmless. It’s only old goats like myself who need their beauty sleep and are tucked up in bed before midnight. Young people are far more nocturnal.’

  ‘It’s decent of you to take it like that; I’ll overlook it this time. Now let me walk you to your car. At least with your family at Monewdon, you’ll get a good night’s sleep.’

  And Mr Campion did. In fact, he had three consecutive nights of undisturbed slumber but, very early on the Monday morning, he was woken by the ringing of a telephone somewhere in the depths of Monewdon Hall, Guffy Randall’s home and the hub of his farming empire.

  Fumbling for his watch and spectacles, he consulted the luminous dial and discovered it was 4.45 a.m. At least it wasn’t midnight, and the ringing telephone was nowhere near as dramatic as the ‘Last Post’ bugle call. The ringing, which had now stopped, had not disturbed his wife, who slept on serenely beside him, and so Mr Campion settled down to try and remember where he had been in the rather exciting dream – where he was sure he had cut an heroic figure – that had been interrupted.

  He was dozing off satisfactorily when there was a gentle knocking on the bedroom door and then the door creaked open.

  Campion reached for his glasses again and saw a dressing-gowned Guffy Randall shuffle into the room.

  ‘Albert!’ hissed his old friend. ‘Sorry to disturb, old chap, but believe it or not that was the Bishop of St Edmondsbury on the blower and he was in one heck of a state. It’s about the university. There appears to have been a bit of a murder.’

  FIVE

  The Body in the Lake

  ‘What on earth makes you think you have to get involved?’ scolded Lady Amanda.

  Until breakfast that Monday morning, the weekend had gone splendidly to plan. Campion had driven the ten or so miles from the university to Guffy and Mary Randall’s farm at Monewdon, where his wife was waiting, listening patiently to a lecture by her sister on the best ways of raising good crackling on a joint of pork. After an excellent lunch and the forced march across fields with several Labradors in attendance needed to walk it off, the Campions had just enough time to recover before the Randalls hosted a small cocktail party in their honour which involved meeting virtually the entire membership of the Monewdon Hunt and talking about horses, hounds, pigs and pork. The Saturday had offered the chance to fish in a pond on Guffy’s land which he had stocked with carp and tench, though both Mr Campion and Mr Randall were comprehensively outwitted, and they returned to
Monewdon Hall empty-handed to settle for a hot dinner of pig’s liver, onions and mashed potato and large whiskies. Sunday morning meant morning service at St Mary’s in the village, which Mr Campion realized – through a brief conversation with the incumbent vicar – had put him back in the See of the bishop of St Edmondsbury. He was not quite sure how he felt about that.

  ‘There is no reason at all why I should, other than the bishop thinking I should,’ said Campion, concentrating on the clearly compulsory thick slice of Suffolk ham and two fried eggs which had been placed before him. ‘But then he probably wasn’t thinking straight at that time in the morning.’

  Guffy Randall, sitting at the head of the kitchen table, was already one egg and half a slice ahead of his oldest friend. He spoke between mouthfuls: ‘It was a bit of a rum do, him calling so early.’

  ‘Before the cock crowed twice, as it were,’ suggested Campion, ‘or is that heresy? Perhaps he was just being the early bird wanting to catch the worm – that would be me – while the worm was still in Suffolk.’

  ‘Who told the old goat you were staying with us?’ asked Mary Randall, circulating with a teapot and milk jug.

  ‘Somebody at the university,’ said Guffy, chewing heartily.

  ‘I wonder who?’

  ‘No idea, Albert. Cut me some slack, old boy. It was the middle of the night, or just about, and I didn’t think to ask too many questions. When the bishop rings you out of the blue like that – and it was him, I recognized his voice from a dozen boring sermons – well, you stand to attention and do what he tells you.’

  ‘Which was to volunteer my services, it seems,’ said Campion, deftly buttering a slice of toast.

  ‘Didn’t get much of a choice. “Tell Campion it’s happening again and make sure we don’t have another scandal on our hands” was what he said, and it sounded like an order, not a request.’

  ‘I can imagine it did, but he didn’t let on who had been murdered, or where or when?’

  ‘No, he didn’t, and I didn’t think it my place to ask. Might have come across as being nosey.’