by Mike Ripley
‘Just cut it, Campion. Don’t waste police time. You’re a born meddler and a team of Suffolk Punches couldn’t pull you away when you’ve been this close to a juicy murder.’
Campion did a passable double-take worthy of a television comedian. ‘Not too close, I hope. Not close enough – Heaven forfend – to be considered a suspect?’
‘And you can cut the music hall act. I know full well that you’re conducting a private investigation for the Bishop of St Edmondsbury.’
‘I am?’ Campion’s surprise was clearly genuine, if not obvious to the superintendent.
‘So I am reliably informed.’
‘By whom? No, don’t tell me, the bishop’s been on the phone, hasn’t he?’
‘Frequently. He seems to have spoken to just about everyone on campus except you, his gundog. He hasn’t been able to get hold of you.’
For a split second, Appleyard’s face softened, as if a pleasurable memory had intruded on his thoughts. ‘Maybe you’re not as daft as you look.’
‘I hold no specific commission from the bishop, Superintendent, and I see my role here as a buffer, not a gundog, between His Lordship and the university. The vice chancellor seems a decent chap, and if I can relieve some of the pressure on him, then I will try and do so.’
‘So what have you managed to sniff out?’
‘Very little, so little I really do not deserve the bloodhound analogy. I have merely been trying to ascertain the character of the late, lamented professor. Investigating a few Spanish practices, you might say.’
‘Spanish what?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Campion, ‘that’s misleading. As I am sure you know, “Spanish practices” are what our friends in Fleet Street call the rather dubious working practices of the printers’ unions. Men clocking on for two shifts or more at the same time under different names, one of the most popular being Mickey Mouse.’
‘You’ve found that going on here?’
‘No, not at all. I was being stupid and said the first thing that came into my head. It was pure word association and meaningless. What I meant was I seem to have spent the day trying to discover something of the habits and practices of our Spanish victim.’
‘And what did you turn up?’
‘Nothing that wasn’t public knowledge, I suspect. The professor was a wizard in his academic field, doing valuable research which could produce real economic prosperity for his native country. He was at the top of his game and an asset to the university, attracting many students here and, I suspect, the prospect of considerable grant funding. I admit, though, that I have not yet got a feel for the private life of the poor professor.’
‘Catholic, was he?’
‘Yes, why do you ask?’
‘I didn’t, the flaming bishop did. Somebody mentioned he used to visit that old chapel down on the seashore. That would have been Catholic, wouldn’t it?’
‘When it was built, yes, but I do not think it has been used much since the Reformation, and I did not get the impression that the professor was a religious man.’
‘Bit of a commie, you reckon?’
‘I don’t think so. A socially minded sort of chap, I’m told, but not a card-carrying political animal.’
‘Unlike his faithful sidekick …’ Appleyard turned to the constable acting as his stenographer, who flipped a page in his notebook and supplied the name.
‘Honeycutt, that’s it. We’ve had our eye on him for some time.’
‘Nigel Honeycutt? I thought him the loyal assistant and dedicated scientist. A bit of a lefty, I grant you, but surely not a suspect.’
‘Academic jealousy not a good enough motive for you?’ Appleyard snorted in disgust. ‘There’s plenty of that around here, but we’ve had Honeycutt down as a troublemaker for some time, selling the Socialist Worker on the streets of Norwich, always in the front line of anti-Vietnam demonstrations, suspected of associating with members of the Angry Brigade. Know what that is?’
‘I’ve read about them; a rather violent spin-off from the Paris student riots. Misguided fanatics who fancy themselves as urban terrorists, with counterparts in Germany and probably other places in Europe. I can’t see them staging a successful revolution in this country.’
‘I hope you’re right there,’ said Appleyard. ‘Bunch of dissolute middle-class spoiled brats if you ask me. Cambridge drop-outs who tore up their Finals papers as a protest.’
‘Do you know if they’ve been recruiting here on campus?’
‘Wouldn’t surprise me, but Gerry Meade says there are some strange goings-on after hours, so to speak, both here and in White Dudley.’
‘And I’ll bet Big Gerry is the sort who keeps an eagle eye peeled at all times,’ said Campion without a trace of irony.
‘He does, and more power to his elbow. Wish I had a few in blue who were as keen as he is.’ Appleyard narrowed his eyes in the direction of his secretary constable, who made a great play of licking the end of his pencil then writing slowly in his notebook, silently mouthing the words of his superior.
Campion felt he could warm to the young constable and hoped he would get out from under his superintendent as soon as possible.
‘Good to have a man like Meade on the ground, I should think.’
‘Oh, it is,’ said Appleyard with a twitchy grin. ‘It’s even better to have two.’
Leaving what the dramatist would call a pregnant pause, Campion bowed to the inevitable. ‘I presume you mean me, Superintendent.’
‘Well, as you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful. Big Gerry has an ear to the ground when it comes to the below-stairs staff and taproom gossip, but there’s others – bolshie students and them that fancy themselves as intellectuals – who would clam up as soon as he appeared. You can smooth-talk your way in with the professors and come across as a harmless old granddad to the students. All you have to do is keep your ears open.’
‘So I’m to pick up a better class of gossip, is that it?’
‘If you like. There’s some would say you were born to it, plus you have another advantage. You were here back in ’28 when Colonel Coombe got murdered, that gives you a certain … a certain …’
‘Cachet, sir?’ suggested the constable, pencil poised.
‘I prefer mystique,’ said Campion, suppressing a grin.
‘I was going to say notoriety,’ scowled Appleyard. ‘There’s people who will talk to you, and not to the police, because of your previous experience of murder most foul. It’s only human nature, but I want to know what they tell you.’
‘Is this exchange of information, should I glean any, reciprocal?’
‘I’m willing to share to a certain extent, as long as it’s not likely to break the chain of evidence in any future prosecution.’
‘So there is evidence?’
‘Not a shred that would stand up in court.’ Appleyard’s caterpillar eyebrows curled in anguish. ‘We’ve searched his cottage down in White Dudley and his office. Not a clue as to who might have had it in for him. Lots of fingerprints taken, no matches as yet.’
‘The weapon?’
Appleyard shook his head. ‘No prints on the knife, which was of fairly standard kitchen issue. Good quality, mind, Sheffield steel and all that.’
‘A professional job?’
‘Still waiting for the official autopsy but from what I saw it could have been somebody who knew what they were doing or a complete fluke. The fatal stab could have been delivered by a man or a woman as long as they were taller than a dwarf.’
‘Not much to go on.’
‘That’s where you come in. We’ve got the means – the knife – and the opportunity – middle of the night, on a bridge over a lake with nobody else around. But we don’t have a motive, and I have a feeling in my waters that once we know the motive, we’ll have the murderer. So you get out there and start snooping.’
‘Do I have any choice?’
The constable with the notebook caught Campion’s eye and silen
tly shook his head. ‘Not really,’ said Appleyard, ‘and there’s one other thing I need you to do.’
‘Let me guess. You want me to telephone the bishop at regular intervals to get him off your back, and I suspect the chief constable’s back as well.’
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said the superintendent with sarcasm rather than gratitude.
Once dismissed by the superintendent, Campion found Gerry Meade standing guard over his case and hat.
‘Mr Marshall told me to show you to your room,’ he said with a curt nod and an expression which suggested he had many far better things to do.
‘How kind,’ said Campion. ‘I’m sure I can manage to find my way into Durkheim – the pyramid that is, not his books. I don’t think my addled brain is up to that. Still, I would be glad of some sturdy company as I might need a bodyguard.’
‘Really?’ Meade’s ox-like face glowed with curiosity. ‘Why would that be, Mr Campion?’
Campion leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered his voice, although he and Meade had the entrance hall to themselves. ‘Well, between you and me, I seem to be working for the police now, unofficially of course and’ – he tapped a finger against the side of his nose – ‘confidentially. I understand Superintendent Appleyard regards you as a useful pair of extra hands as well.’
‘Hands, eyes and ears,’ said Meade with pride and a disturbing gleefulness, ‘and I’m more than glad to be of service, but I don’t get why you might need a bodyguard.’
‘Radical elements, anarchist groups and militant students who don’t like the police or police snoopers. The superintendent seems quite worried about them and I will be living among them.’
‘Don’t you worry about that, Mr C. I know most of the troublemakers by sight and they know me. If they see you with me, they’ll know not to trouble you.’
‘That’s very comforting,’ said Campion, convinced that Meade would not recognize a dangerous anarchist if one ran up and handed him a round, black cartoon bomb with a spluttering fuse.
Having confirmed his suspicion that Gerry Meade would be a direct conduit back to Appleyard, and hopefully having convinced him that they were both on the same side, Campion began to extract information as the pair walked towards the campus. Meade indicated that they should take the path to the wooden bridge, where the constables on duty would allow them to pass as they regarded him as ‘one of their own’ now. This they did, one of them simply acknowledging them with a non-committal ‘Gerry’ as they crossed, the structure creaking gently under their weight.
‘Do we have any idea what the professor was doing out here at midnight?’ Campion asked, emphasizing the ‘we’.
‘There was no reason for him to be going to Black Dudley, not at that time of night, so he was probably heading for the car park. His car was there, we found it this morning.’
‘So where was he coming from?’
‘Probably his office or the Computing Centre; he had his own keys for both.’
From the middle of the bridge, Campion surveyed the low-lying concrete campus before him and the peaks of the residential pyramids behind the line of the piazzas.
‘Or indeed anywhere on the campus,’ he said as they walked on. ‘Would that be unusual, working late on a Sunday night?’
‘Not really. The professors and them with research projects work funny hours, especially those wanting to get on the computer.’
They were entering Piazza 1, where the large wooden outdoor chess pieces formed a formidable obstacle to anyone attempting to enter the Computing Centre by walking in a straight line.
‘I get the impression that allocation of computing time is something of a touchy subject in the university.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Meade. ‘They fight like cats and dogs over the bloody thing, them professors do. They’re like kids pulling at a favourite toy.’
‘Any of them likely to pull hard enough to kill him over it?’
‘Oh, plenty of ’em threatened to knock him off at one time or another, but I reckon it was mostly fresh air.’
‘What about the students?’
‘They loved him. He was their very own scientific genius, in line for a Nobel Prize, they reckon. Quite something to say you’ve been taught by a Nobel Prize winner. Even the students he didn’t teach liked him. The lefties because he reminded them of that Che Guevara feller and the girls because he was their idea of a randy Latin lover.’
They were through the piazza, following the paths around the Threepenny Bit and the Circus to the pyramids, an odd couple of elderly men, one in a grey uniform and one in a pinstripe suit and fedora, on a late afternoon passeggiata through some of the oddest architecture ever to grace the Suffolk countryside.
The students they passed on the way to the fourth pyramid gave them only cursory looks, Campion’s fedora attracting far more admiring glances than Meade’s uniform, but none seemed surprised or objected to their presence. Overall, they seemed a polite and trusting crowd, Campion thought, and frightfully young.
‘The professor lived in White Dudley, I believe,’ said Campion as they entered Durkheim and began to climb the stairwell, ‘as you do.’
‘Yes, what of it?’
Meade was ascending the stairs at a fair clip and was somewhat surprised to discover that Campion’s long legs were keeping pace.
‘Oh, I just wondered if he played a part in village life; joined the cricket team, grew vegetables on the allotment, frequented the local pub, that sort of thing.’
‘Couldn’t really say. Kept himself to himself. Here we are. Don’t bother with your key, I’ll use my master set.’ He produced a bunch of keys on a ring as big as an orange and selected one. ‘I’d better explain the lock. It’s the latest in modern technology.’
The lock, said Meade, was a doorknob type, the long, thin key being inserted in the centre of the metal orb of the door handle itself. One turn of the key opened the lock and the door. Close the door and it locked automatically. For added security there was a button mechanism on the inside which could deadlock the knob.
‘All the keys might look alike,’ said Meade, enjoying the chance to lecture to a captive audience, ‘but they only fit one lock. This being Durkheim and the top-floor flat, you’ll find D1 embossed on your key, so it only works on this lock and there’s no danger of you going into somebody else’s room by mistake.’
‘Or roaming the corridors with a view to a little breaking-and-entering,’ said Campion as Meade held the door open. ‘Thank you. I will sleep easier knowing I’m so secure.’
Campion dropped his suitcase in the middle of the room and went immediately to the window which gave a spectacular view of the library and the length of the campus. But Campion looked downwards, not at the panorama. Once he saw Big Gerry Meade exit the pyramid and begin to stride towards the Admin building, he took out his long, calfskin wallet and, from a narrow sleeve incorporated in the spine, he withdrew a thin metal nail file of traditional design, the pointed end curved like an upturned comma.
He went out to the staircase, closing the flat door behind him and testing the doorknob which refused to budge under his grip.
Checking he was alone in the stairwell, he dropped to one knee and inserted the comma end of his nail file into the key slot and turned it gently first left then right. A tumbler clicked, and the door swung silently open. The whole exercise taking less than five seconds.
Campion stepped back into the room and replaced the file in his wallet. ‘Modern technology my foot!’ he said to himself. ‘We oldies can still show them a thing or two.’
EIGHT
The Mild and Bitter Brigade
Mr Campion surveyed his new accommodation and was delighted to find that the wall-mounted telephone was clearly marked: Internal Calls Only, No Outside Line. If it offered few of the home comforts he was used to, that alone would have been worth the rent – had he been paying any for it – as it meant that, with a clear conscience, he could remain incommunicado from
the bishop. There would come a day, if science-fiction television dramas were to be believed, when in the future there would be personal ‘communicators’ assigned to every individual to enable them to make and, worse, to receive telephone calls at all hours of the day and night. There would be no escape; it was an awful prospect.
The staff flat was compact, ergonomically designed and fitted with all mod cons; or so an estate agent would have said, all the time emphasizing the magnificent views over the campus to distract potential tenants from the tiny bathroom where it was physically possible – in fact, necessary – to use the shower and the shaving mirror over the washbasin simultaneously.
The Estates Office had provided bed linen and blankets, even making up the narrow bed which doubled as a sofa (clearly too short for Campion’s elongated frame), along with a pair of towels, for which Campion was grateful, and after a thorough wash and brush-up requiring his previously unknown skills as a contortionist, he turned to the inner man.
Once he had deduced that the strange water-filled plastic container with a red switch and a stubby metal spout fixed to the wall above the doll’s-house sink was in fact a space-age kettle, his opinion of the university dipped when he realized he had not been provided with tea, milk, sugar, or even a cup. As it was unlikely that the internal telephone was linked to anything resembling room service, and as he did not wish to impose on either Mrs Downes or Superintendent Appleyard at Black Dudley any further, he decided to explore the library, of which he had a bird’s-eye view, and which might have one of those ghastly machines which dispensed ersatz tea in flimsy plastic cups.
If it had, he did not find it, but he soon forgot all about his need for the cup that cheers but does not inebriate (a homily he had never had much faith in) when faced with the task of gaining admittance after being confronted by a formidable middle-aged lady whose bird’s-nest hairstyle acted as a quiver for several no doubt recently sharpened pencils and who wore a grey woollen cardigan like a flak jacket.
Campion knew he had little chance of pretending he was a new student. Not even his son Rupert, an actor, would attempt to with such a grim-faced audience, and this gatekeeper of the university’s repository of knowledge would surely know all members of the academic staff by sight. There was nothing for it but to tell the truth, so when asked who he was, he replied with dignity just short of pomposity, ‘I am the university Visitor.’