Mr Campion's Visit

by Mike Ripley

  ‘They didn’t call him The Magician just for his science.’

  ‘I see,’ said Campion diplomatically. ‘Did that generate any ill-feeling … any jealousy … within the department?’

  ‘Not that I was aware of. We were all delighted to have Pascual as our leader; his work was trail-blazing and we were proud to be associated with it, and willing to put up with the fact that his research tended to monopolize our allocation of computer time.’

  ‘So all is sweetness and light in Earth Sciences?’

  ‘If you are asking, in a roundabout way, whether any of his colleagues in the department could have been responsible for his death, I would have to say absolutely not. In fact, I cannot think of anyone who would harm Pascual.’

  Campion pushed his spectacles back on his nose with a forefinger.

  ‘A magician who can predict where to dig for gold and silver and uranium? I’m sure there must be a few candidates …’

  Campion followed Honeycutt’s example and carried his empty plate and glass back to the bar as they made to leave, pausing to acknowledge the polite, ‘Thank you, m’dear’ from the middle-aged barmaid in nylon work coat crackling with static electricity, who already, on the first full day of term, looked suitably harassed. When Campion returned her thanks and complimented her on the perfect ratio of bread-to-butter-to-cheese in his ploughman’s, it put a spring in her step.

  Honeycutt had simply slammed his plate on the bar and turned for the door which would take him out of the refectory, but his exit was blocked, and deliberately so, by a tall blonde female figure.

  Campion only had to take two paces to be within earshot of the exchange between them, which was short, sharp and far from friendly.

  ‘Now that El Brujo is out of the way, what are the chances of the rest of us getting our fair share of computer time?’

  The woman spoke quickly, and her tone made Honeycutt, rocking back on his heels, recoil from her. Campion was sure he could detect an accent not totally English.

  ‘That’s not up to me,’ Honeycutt said nervously. ‘Take it up with Jack Szmodics.’

  ‘Oh I will, have no fear. There are plenty of us with research which needs computer time and we’re not frightened of golden boy Pascual any more.’

  And then the woman had gone from in front of Honeycutt and out of Campion’s line of vision and, without turning around, Honeycutt also disappeared.

  The left-leaning geologist had clearly opted for discretion rather than valour, which Mr Campion felt was the sensible course of action, for the last time he had seen the blonde woman confront a member of the Earth Sciences department, it had resulted in a resounding, very public, slap against the face of the late Professor Perez-Catalan.

  SEVEN

  Spanish Practices

  Mr Campion followed the footpath into Piazza 2, the campus home of the Arts and Humanities department, where he blended in remarkably well with the bustling population of students, despite being half a century older than most. Perhaps, he ruminated, they thought he was a distinguished visiting professor rather than an undistinguished Visitor just visiting.

  To his right, in Piazza 1, he could see the outdoor chessboard with its oversize pieces standing idle by the Computing Centre. Clearly none of the new intake of students had the confidence yet to challenge the computer to a game, or were not yet sufficiently off the parental leash to steal one of the pieces as a souvenir to decorate their room. It was an inescapable fact that such a rural setting away from main roads did not offer the traditional temptation of collecting traffic cones.

  To take advantage of the vice chancellor’s offer of accommodation, Campion was required to register with the Accommodation Office in the Admin building, and he pointed himself in its direction and began to traverse Piazza 3. Halfway across, he swerved to the left of the defunct fountain in a vain attempt to avoid contact with George Tinkler, the university chaplain, who was coming from Administration, walking swiftly with his nose in the air, an affectation born of years of precariously balancing pince-nez.

  ‘Campion! Just the chap I was looking for,’ said Tinkler, across the fountain-turned-firepit-turned-birdbath, the inside rim of which bore traces of scorching.

  ‘I can’t think why you should be, Mr Tinkler. I’m not really supposed to be here.’

  Campion touched the brim of his fedora in the chaplain’s general direction but kept walking. To his dismay, Mr Tinkler rounded the fountain and fell into step – or as near as his much shorter legs could manage – alongside his prey.

  ‘Ah, but the bishop says otherwise. He telephoned me this morning and said you were acting as his eyes and ears on campus during the present … difficulties.’

  ‘I would not put it that way,’ said Campion, his eyes fixed on the archway entrance to the Admin block and the library beyond, ‘but it seems that the bishop has a remarkable faith in my ability to be a reassuring presence in a time of strife. I cannot think why, but I wish he would share some of that faith with my wife.’

  ‘He said you’d be the man to ask,’ said the chaplain plaintively.

  ‘Ask what?’

  ‘About the funeral arrangements.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘For Professor Perez-Catalan.’

  Campion looked askance at the smaller man buzzing around him. ‘Oh good, I thought somebody else had died,’ he said drily. ‘As I understand the situation, the professor was murdered not much more than twelve hours ago. The legal ramifications of that should be clear even to the bishop. There will be no question of a funeral until the police have finished their enquiries.’

  ‘The bishop is not expecting the university to bury the poor man,’ Tinkler said, though Campion suspected the words were the bishop’s, ‘but he feels the formalities should be handled by an officiate of his own faith.’

  ‘Are you presuming the professor was a Roman Catholic?’

  ‘Well they all are, down in South America, aren’t they?’

  ‘I simply could not say, and I really do not understand what you – or the bishop – expect of me.’

  Tinkler clasped his hands together, but in a wringing movement rather than in preparation for prayer. ‘The bishop is most insistent that no aspect of this unfortunate incident should reflect badly on the university. He realizes that there has to be a police investigation, and what comes of that is out of his hands, but there must be no suggestion that the university neglected the spiritual side of things. Professor Perez-Catalan was, after all, a guest in our country, and a long way from home with no family here. The least the university can do is take notice of his religious needs.’

  Campion scowled at the chaplain. It was something he did rarely and was not convinced that he was any good at it.

  ‘I believe that is what is known in public relations as “covering all the bases” but what, pray – if that’s not blasphemy – am I supposed to do about it?’

  ‘The bishop thought you might know a local Roman Catholic priest who could advise us.’

  Campion shook his head in genuine bafflement. ‘And you don’t?’

  ‘Suffolk is predominantly Anglican, with very few Catholics. With your long-standing family connections to the county …’

  ‘The nearest Catholic church will be Our Lady’s in Stowmarket which, until this year, was one of the few, if not only, first-floor churches in the country.’ Tinkler looked suitably confused and had he been wearing his pince-nez he would have adjusted them. ‘I think the church was designed to incorporate a school on the ground floor, but that has eventually proved impractical,’ Campion continued. ‘I only know this because I read an article about it. Do we know if the professor worshipped there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do we know if he worshipped anywhere or if he was at all religious?’

  ‘I did not know him well,’ the chaplain conceded, ‘and we never discussed religion, but I assumed he had spiritual beliefs because of his retreats.’

  ‘His what?’


  ‘It was common knowledge that the professor would use the old chapel of St Jurmin, up beyond Black Dudley on the beach, for his private contemplation.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  Mr Campion was surprised.

  Mr Tinkler had said something interesting.

  The estates officer himself, Gregor Marshall, was in the Accommodation Office to ceremonially hand over the key to Campion’s temporary lodgings.

  ‘The vice chancellor has told me to put you in our spare staff flat, which you’ll find at the top of the Durkheim pyramid; that’s the one nearest the library. There’s only the one key for the flat itself – the entrances to the pyramids are open twenty-four hours a day; just walk in and climb the central staircase until your head hits the ceiling, then you’re there.’

  ‘I had my introduction to tomb-raiding last week, so I think I can find my way,’ said Campion, pocketing the serrated steel comb which resembled an elongated Yale key.

  ‘Tomb-raiding?’

  ‘I do apologize, it was my first thought when Dr Downes showed me inside one of the pyramids last week. Howard Carter and the tomb of Tutankhamun, but without the associated curse.’

  ‘Yes, well …’ Mr Marshall did not seem keen to pursue that image. ‘As you will not be a permanent resident with a tenancy agreement, and therefore covered by the university’s insurance policies, I’m going to have to ask you to sign a legal waiver exonerating the university in case of accidents, including falling down the stairwell or from the windows, plus an acknowledgement that you have been made aware of the fire regulations and acquainted yourself with the fire drill.’

  ‘It suddenly sounds more dangerous than I thought, but if a legal waiver also protects me from a pharaoh’s curse, then pass me a pen,’ said Campion cheerfully as he scrutinized the sheaf of printed forms being thrust in front of him.

  While still reading the fine print he said, almost as an aside: ‘By the way, could I ask – and I realize this is a foolish question in a university specializing in languages and with a vice chancellor who is a Hispanist – but is there anyone reasonably adjacent who speaks Spanish?’

  ‘Hundreds of ’em, down in the language labs. They speak every language under the sun and a couple not yet discovered,’ said Marshall. ‘Regular Tower of Babel it is down there, but they’ll be up to their eyes in it this afternoon, with the new students trying out the equipment like kids in a sweetshop.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to interrupt a class or a lecture, it’s only a minor thing.’

  ‘Well, there’s the vice chancellor of course, though I think he’s got his hands full up at the Dudley now the police are back there asking more questions.’ Marshall paused, and his eyes narrowed. ‘You could always try Mrs Downes, of course; she is Spanish after all.’

  ‘Thank you, that’s an excellent idea.’

  Campion beamed his most innocent smile, to disguise his unease at the tone in which Marshall had suggested it.

  He approached Black Dudley via the car park where a constable informed him gruffly that no one could remove a car without the superintendent’s written permission. Campion assured him that he wished merely to retrieve his overnight bag from the boot of his Jaguar as he was staying on campus; hinting, if not saying outright, at the request of Mr Appleyard. The policeman nodded approval in a that’s-all-right-then sort of way, and went back to rocking on his heels and surveying the campus and the parkland for illegal activities and no doubt sending messages telepathically to his two comrades still guarding the bridge over the artificial lake about the possibility of claiming overtime.

  Suitcase in hand, Campion strode across the grass towards the house, tasting the salt on the air from the breeze coming off the sea to the east, fancying himself as looking like a door-to-door salesman a considerable way off his usual round.

  Gregor Marshall had been correct in that Dr Downes was tied up with the police enquiry and simply could not see anyone, or so Campion was assured by his secretary, who had graduated from harassed to vexed as her daily routine continued to be sabotaged. Mrs Downes, however, was available, and was in her sitting room on the first floor if Mr Campion thought he could find his own way up there.

  On Campion’s original, dramatic visit to Black Dudley forty years previously, the Downes’s sitting room would have been one of several dark and draughty north-facing bedrooms. Campion may well have been in it on that eventful weekend, perhaps entered it by one of the ridiculous secret passages which riddled the upper floors. He might even have been held prisoner there briefly or knocked unconscious by a burly gangster in a furious fistfight – it had been that sort of a house party.

  He certainly could not remember the view from the large sash windows, over parkland to the sea and the curve of the coastline, and had a vague recollection that the area had been given over to pine woodland, not that house guests on that infamous weekend had been encouraged to explore the grounds. For most of the time they had been forcibly confined to the gloomy Black Dudley itself.

  Dolores Downes had welcomed Campion in with an automatic apology that her husband was busy helping the police with their enquiries, but did not appear reassured when Campion proclaimed that she was the reason for his visit. In fact, Dolores Downes looked faintly alarmed.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you with so much else going on, but I need your help in a small matter.’

  ‘Help? My help? How? Please, have a seat.’

  ‘No, thank you, I will not outstay my welcome. It’s a simple matter of translation as my Spanish is not presentable outside of a tapas bar. How would you say “The Sorcerer” in your native language?’

  ‘El Hechicero,’ she said uncertainly.

  ‘Rather than El Mago, which I think is more the equivalent of “Magus”, as in Greek or Persian and in English when we refer to the Magi – the Three Wise Men who followed the star to Bethlehem in the Bible.’

  ‘Yes, I would agree,’ said Mrs Downes. ‘El Mago would be a wise man, a teacher with mystical powers.’

  ‘As opposed to a sorcerer who dabbles in magic and spells?’

  Dolores’s fingers went to her face and nervously flicked her long black hair back until it looped behind her ears before she answered Campion.

  ‘You are talking about Pascual.’

  ‘Yes, I am. He has been described to me as a sorcerer, or a magus, when it comes to his work. The Americans would probably call him a “whizz-kid” and the BBC might use the term “scientific wizard” when it is in one of its more informal moments.’

  They had gravitated to the centre of the room and stood, rather awkwardly, a foot apart, Campion holding his hat by its brim and Mrs Downes touching her hair as if to get every jet-black strand in its rightful place.

  ‘Have you heard Professor Perez-Catalan referred to as a sorcerer?’ Campion asked to break the silence.

  ‘Yes,’ said the woman quietly.

  ‘How about as El Brujo?’

  ‘I have never heard him called that!’

  Dolores Downes’s eyes flashed, startling Campion into an instant apology. ‘I do hope I have not offended. That was certainly not my intention. I am not even sure what the word means.’

  ‘Bruja is a witch; El Brujo is a man who is a witch.’

  ‘A warlock. I see. That’s rather more sinister than sorcerer and definitely not as reverential as magus.’

  ‘Who called him that?’

  Now those big brown eyes were piercing into Campion’s bland and unassuming expression. ‘Absolutely no one of any consequence. It was merely something I overheard and was confused by. I’m sure no disrespect was intended.’

  Mrs Downes did not appear convinced, but her gaze dropped away.

  ‘One other thing while I am here,’ Campion began carefully, ‘and if it is not too personal, may I ask if you are a Catholic?’

  ‘You may, and I am.’

  ‘And the professor, was he a Catholic too?’

  ‘Yes, he was.’

  ‘Did you by any cha
nce use the same place of worship? I was thinking Our Lady’s in Stowmarket would be the nearest Catholic church.’

  ‘I have been to mass there many times,’ said the woman, and there was a dreamy quality about her voice, ‘but Pascual was not a good Catholic and his place of worship was elsewhere.’

  As Campion took his leave, his brain hummed with the last phrase Mrs Downes had spoken. She could, of course, have meant that the professor’s chosen site for religious devotions was his scientific laboratory or perhaps the Computing Centre which he was said to monopolize. But those very feminine brown eyes had betrayed her by automatically focusing on the window as she spoke; and through the window, in the distance, the chapel of St Jurmin.

  Suitcase in hand, Mr Campion was almost out of the Dudley’s main door when he was stopped in his tracks by the command ‘Campion!’, at a volume which in the open air would have graced a parade ground and indoors was loud enough to rattle the window panes.

  ‘Yes, Superintendent? What can I do for you?’ said Campion without turning around.

  ‘Wondered if you could spare me a minute. In here.’

  Mr Campion put down his case near the door, took off his hat and placed it on the case, then reluctantly followed the voice into the vice chancellor’s office, where Superintendent Appleyard had made himself very comfortable behind the vice chancellor’s desk, the notetaking constable seated to his side now a firm fixture.

  ‘Dare I ask how the investigation is going, Superintendent?’ asked Campion.

  ‘I wouldn’t if I were you, at least not before you’ve told me if your snooping and sniffing around has turned up anything interesting.’

  Campion threw up his hands in mock horror. ‘Snooping and sniffing, Superintendent? What must you think of me? Goodness, I feel positively faint. May I sit down?’

  ‘Only if you’ve got something to tell me,’ snapped the policeman.

  ‘In that case, I’ll stand. I had no idea I was supposed to be freelancing for your investigation, Mr Appleyard. Should we draw up some sort of contract or hire agreement?’

  Appleyard’s face remained a slab; not even those thick hedgerows of eyebrows signalled emotion.