Mr Campion's Visit

by Mike Ripley

  ‘I hope you weren’t expecting to arrive unnoticed,’ said Campion when Lugg paused for breath, ‘two bowler-hatted old fusspots trotting into the middle of a student protest like that. No wonder they pegged you for Laurel and Hardy.’

  ‘Cheek! No respect for their elders, the younger generation.’

  ‘And nobody ever said that about you when you were running around in knickerbockers with your hoop and stick, chucking mud pies at Mr Disraeli and that dangerous Liberal Mr Gladstone.’

  ‘’Ere, steady on, you’re no spring chicken yerself; and anyway, the first prime minister I insulted was Lloyd George when he brought in our ridiculous licensing laws.’

  ‘Yes, well, I was with you on that one, but back to business. I take it the bishop sent you.’

  ‘In a way,’ said Lugg, attempting to look coy. ‘He asked if I could spare a day or two to check up on you, seeing as ’ow I helped get you the job. That makes you my protégé, don’t it?’

  ‘Only if “protégé” means superior in both intellect and moral fibre in ancient French.’

  ‘Well, anyways, I turned His Lordship down as universities ain’t my natural habitat, a little learning being a dangerous thing.’

  ‘You’re quite safe on that score, old chum, but what changed your mind?’

  ‘I had a word with Lady A.’

  ‘My better half?’

  ‘Your better three-quarters, if you ask me. She said she’d no idea what you were up to, but she’d just had a call from Guffy Randall who was convinced you’d gone doolally and she’d appreciate it if I took up the bishop’s offer pronto.’

  ‘Yes,’ Campion mused, ‘she did threaten to embarrass me in front of the students … You made good time and now you’re here, you can be useful.’

  Mr Lugg sighed loudly and reached for another sandwich. ‘No peace for the wicked. I suppose it’s the murder of that foreign professor that’s got your juices flowing?’

  ‘I didn’t realize it had been reported in the Racing Post.’

  ‘Didn’t have to be. I got the full SP and form from Gerry the wagon driver on the way over here. Sounds as if Pedro, or whatever his name is, was a bit of a lad when it came to the ladies, a regular Don Juan. You got any idea who topped him?’

  Mr Campion drained his teacup and tentatively reached for the one remaining sandwich on the cake stand, but Lugg’s massive paw was quicker and he inched it out of range.

  ‘If this was a classic country-house murder mystery, which it isn’t because this is no longer a country house, then suitable suspects would be identified first by who had means and opportunity; then there would be a lot of psycho-babble about motive. In the case of poor Pascual – not Pedro – we have an abundance of motives and quite a few suspects, but it’s pinning down the means and opportunity.’

  ‘Who’s next then?’ asked Lugg.

  ‘Next? Next for what?’

  ‘The chop. In yer traditional country-house whodunit, there’s always a second murder, then the ’ero turns up in the nick o’time to stop a third, and catch the villain.’

  ‘Don’t worry your pretty little head about that. This isn’t a country house any more, it’s a university, a civilized place of learning and scientific research. I am confident there will not be a second murder and we will find that the motive for Pascual’s murder was sadly really rather pedestrian.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve got it sorted out.’

  ‘Far from it, chum, that’s why you have to keep your ears open for me down in White Dudley.’

  The fat man was taken by surprise and a surprised Lugg was usually a dangerous beast.

  ‘What’s a White Dudley when it’s at home?’

  ‘It’s where you’re staying, chez Gerry Meade, for tonight at least.’

  ‘The bishop promised me the best room in the house. This house.’

  ‘Unfortunately, the police are continuing to occupy the building and don’t want civilians wandering about in their pyjamas. Incidentally, keep well clear of Superintendent Appleyard, their big boss; he’s a prickly sort of fellow and the bishop’s name cuts no ice with him. He’s even had me thrown out and lodged in the student residences.’

  ‘I pity the students, all except that saucy little sod with the bugle.’

  ‘You’ll be down in White Dudley, so you’ll miss his midnight matinee when he plays the “Last Post”.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Scout’s honour. He’s known as the Phantom Trumpeter and you can set your watch by him, but you’ll be out of earshot. That doesn’t mean your ears shouldn’t be flapping. I need you to pick up anything you can in the way of local gossip, especially about Mrs Meade – her name’s Edwina and she’s the local snoop.’

  Mr Lugg was immediately suspicious. ‘What you got planned for me, a quiet night in front of the telly with Gerry Meade’s missus?’

  ‘Oh no, there’s a local pub called The Plough. Get Gerry to take you there. You might even run into an old face from the war, a chap called Bill Warren, who’s one of the porters here. He should be good for a drink.’

  Mr Lugg brightened. ‘Does this pub do food?’

  ‘Yes, and you must try their pies.’

  ‘What flavour pies?’

  ‘Meat.’

  Mr Lugg smacked his lips. ‘My favourite.’

  After briefing Lugg on who was who in the university hierarchy and offering a silent prayer that he would not come into contact with any of them, Mr Campion discovered that he was running late for his tentative appointment with Stephanie Silva. He felt, however, that as her knight in shining armour who had rescued her from the police dragon that afternoon, she would allow him some leeway. He promised himself that he would consult Don Quixote, who was bound to have something quotable on the prerogative of elderly knights to be late.

  At the quick march, he strode for the bridge over the lake again. Szmodics and Thurible had disappeared, no doubt in search of a warming drink as the afternoon was now distinctly chilly and the sun going down. Only a handful of students remained lounging on the grass, all thoughts of protest spent. No doubt taking inspiration from the Phantom Trumpeter, they began whistling the ‘Colonel Bogey’ theme to accompany Campion’s progress across the arched bridge and, so as not to disappoint them, he stood to attention and gave them a parade-ground salute before stretching his long legs on the path to Piazza 1.

  He spared the open-air chessboard only a cursory glance, noting that the last game had ended in a Pyrrhic victory for whoever had played black, before entering the department of Languages and Linguistics hoping for the customary wall notice for guidance. He found it easily enough and was amused to learn from it, thanks to added graffiti in felt-tip marker pen, that the language labs were on the ground floor, the departmental office and seminar rooms were on the first floor, staff offices were on the second floor, and ‘lingerie and footwear’ were, apparently, on an imaginary third floor.

  He took the lift to the second floor and worked his way down the deserted, neon-lit corridor until he found a door marked, rather formally, ‘Estephanie Silva, BA, BSc’, which opened at the first tap of Campion’s knuckle.

  ‘I’d almost given up on you,’ said Miss Silva, leaning in coquettish pose against the doorframe. ‘Then I saw you doing your Bridge on the River Kwai act, taking the salute of your loyal fans.’

  ‘Your loyal fans,’ Campion corrected, ‘and on the whole a cheerful, dedicated bunch. You are lucky to have students who adore you. I get the impression that the late Professor Perez-Catalan inspired similar feelings among students and colleagues.’

  Miss Silva waved Campion into her office. ‘Pascual was loved by everybody – except that can’t be true, can it?’

  ‘Clearly not, but were you among his admirers?’ He held up the leather-bound Cervantes. ‘And before you answer that, I own up to having read the inscription on this rather expensive volume.’

  ‘I’ve told you I have already shocked the superintendent with honest tales of my sex l
ife, so it would be stupid to deny now that Pascual and I were lovers. Very passionate lovers,’ she added, with a deliberate flutter of her eyelashes.

  ‘Latin lovers?’

  ‘You’ve been quick to pick up the gossip, but it was not technically accurate. My father was Spanish, but he died when I was very young. My mother was British – no, not British, English, very English – and I was born and brought up in that famous Spanish coastal resort, the Costa del Brighton, then boarding school in Kent and university in London, which is why I have a British passport, struggle to get a tan and don’t look particularly Latin, whatever that means.’

  ‘I suppose the blonde hair fools most people,’ said Campion.

  ‘Not necessarily. There are blondes in Spain, probably as a result of some Viking raids a thousand years ago.’

  Campion nodded sagely. ‘Yes, those Vikings got everywhere. But you kept your Spanish name.’

  ‘Why not? Estephanie is rather nice, my mother never remarried, so I saw no reason to change. Because I speak Spanish, teach Spanish and have a Spanish name, people assume I am Spanish. They probably think that explains my explosive bursts of temperament, but those are when I feel strongly about something, not because I’m hot-blooded Spanish. In fact, I’m more sort of cold-blooded Home Counties.’

  ‘I have been here less than a week and I have already witnessed two of your public explosions. Are they common events?’

  ‘Only if I don’t get my own way.’ She smiled at Campion and the word ‘she-wolf’ sprang into his mind. ‘On academic matters, I should add. I take it you saw my little spat with Pascual in the middle of the piazza?’

  ‘That and your assault on poor old Nigel Honeycutt in the refectory.’

  ‘Nigel, that lily-livered pinko? I’ve no time for hero-worshipping acolytes, not when they stop me using the computer to teach my students.’

  ‘So your emotional eruptions were over professional, academic matters?’

  ‘Of late, yes. We stopped rowing about sex or whose turn it was to do the washing up or put the bins out well over a year ago.’

  ‘That would be down in White Dudley, would it?’ Campion asked. ‘The row about the bins and the washing up, not necessarily the sex.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Pascual lived there, and I don’t think you live on campus, so his place would be the nearest venue for scenes of domestic bliss – or outburst.’

  ‘I have a flat in Saxmundham, so Pascual’s place was more convenient for getting to work in the mornings. It had its drawbacks, of course.’

  ‘Let me guess: Mrs Meade across the road.’

  ‘Got it in one,’ said Miss Silva, ‘the nosey old cow. Oh, sorry, I hope I haven’t shocked you.’

  Mr Campion prodded his spectacles further up his nose. ‘If your sex life fails to shock me, I do not see why your opinions on Edwina Meade should, particularly when I agree with them.’

  The woman tilted her head and stared quizzically at Campion. With her face framed by her long blonde hair, Campion could see why men fell for her.

  ‘There’s a Spanish proverb,’ she said, ‘which, roughly translated, says: Love is blind, but the neighbours aren’t. I never realized how true that was until I ran into Mrs Meade.’

  Campion made a show of consulting his wristwatch. ‘Look, Miss Silva …’

  ‘Stephanie, or Steph. Please.’

  ‘Steph, I’ve just realized a terribly important thing,’ he said seriously. ‘I missed lunch entirely and I really do not fancy chancing the menu down at The Plough in White Dudley again – well, certainly not tonight. I believe the refectory opens at five. Could I persuade you to join me? We can continue the character assassination of Mrs Meade.’

  ‘The food in the refectory is truly awful,’ said Steph Silva, ‘unless you really like baked beans and chips with everything, and I do mean everything. But as those are the two main food groups of the average student, it gets quite busy in the early evening. So I suggest we go now and grab a table where we can gossip in peace.’

  If there was a dress code in the refectory inside the ‘Circus’ building, Mr Campion and Miss Silva exceeded it by some considerable distance. Both drew inquisitive glances from student customers; in the case of Campion they were of mild curiosity from both sexes, in the case of Steph Silva the bulk were of embarrassed lust from young male eyes. Miss Silva seemed unaffected by them.

  They queued together at the self-service counter and Campion realized that Miss Silva had not been exaggerating about the limitations of the menu. He settled for a brace of suspiciously orange fishcakes which came with the obligatory chips and beans and, as a treat, added a portion of ‘spotted dick’ sponge pudding and custard to his tray.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about your figure,’ said Steph as Campion pointed a raised eyebrow at the plate on her tray which contained a splatter of limp lettuce, a tomato cut in half and a cold chicken breast, with a glass of water for dessert.

  ‘Neither do you,’ said Campion, ‘judging by the admiring glances. You have the ability to turn male heads.’

  ‘And I hope a few female ones too. I like to keep the opposition on their toes.’

  She gave Mr Campion a lascivious wink and led him to an unoccupied table with four chairs, two of which she folded into the table to discourage any other diners from joining them. Campion put down his tray and placed the Don Quixote translation to one side. The leather-bound Spanish edition he placed in front of Steph’s tray.

  ‘It’s awfully rude to read at the table, but I think this may be the one place it’s allowed,’ said Campion, ‘and I’d like to start with that far from slim volume.’

  ‘I’ve read it, several times. What do you want to know about it?’

  ‘I told you, I’m nosey. I’ve read the inscription. When did you give it to Pascual?’

  ‘Two years ago, when we were at it like rabbits. Do I shock you?’

  ‘No, not yet, but please do not stop trying. You were lovers, but it ended some time ago, correct?’

  ‘In a nutshell, yes; and before you ask, yes, it was a stormy relationship, shockingly public and often violent.’

  ‘You seem neither sorry nor upset by that.’

  ‘Should I be? Both Pascual and I were consenting adults and what we did in our private lives should have been private, except it was anything but. We started out trying to be as careful as possible, but that didn’t last long. Prying eyes and flapping lips made sure of that.’

  ‘Edwina Meade, I’m guessing.’

  ‘You guess right, Mr Visitor. At first it was quite fun trying to shock her, but then it got nasty when she tried to blackmail Pascual and downright sinister when the gossip started on campus, suggesting I was some sort of Mata Hari seducing Pascual to get at his research. That one was started by the odious Gerry Meade and, sadly, quite a few of the academics here were starting to believe it.’

  ‘So you wisely called it a day,’ said Campion.

  ‘Oh no, we called it a day when I found out he was two-timing me and then it became definite when I discovered he was three-timing me. I think that was when I threatened to kill him for the first time.’

  ‘And Mrs Meade – or Gerry – they overheard you?’

  ‘As I did it in the middle of Piazza 3, I think everybody heard me.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Now I have shocked you.’

  ‘No, modern times mean modern morals. I try and keep up, not judge. My mother, on the other hand, would have had you shot.’ Campion, realizing his meal was cooling and congealing, went to work with his cutlery. ‘You said that was the first time you …’

  ‘Threatened to kill Pascual?’ Steph shrugged her shoulders. ‘Yes, that was the first of many and the police knew about all of them, thanks to Gerry Meade. That’s why they hauled me in today; when I didn’t deny any of it, it rather stumped them. Being honest proved the best policy for once. All they had was gossip, and they couldn’t charge me with gossip.’

&
nbsp; ‘I’m sure Superintendent Appleyard would if he could,’ said Campion without a trace of cynicism. ‘He’s been looking for someone with sufficient motive to commit murder.’

  Steph Silva took a sip of water, put down her glass and smiled at Campion. ‘I had two very good ones.’ She held up one finger, then a second. ‘Firstly, I discovered Pascual was a cheating little rat. Then his precious research took over the Computing Centre and no one else could get a look-in. That was screwing up any chance I had of developing my course on textual analysis in linguistics, which was seriously denting my career prospects.’

  ‘With whom was Pascual cheating on you?’

  Now the woman wagged a finger in front of Campion’s face.

  ‘I have my suspicions, but I won’t share them. To be honest, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Pascual spread his charm as widely as possible. He was a natural flirt but, to be fair, he stayed clear of the female students, even though many went googly-eyed over him. When it came to the staff or the secretaries, though, no woman was safe.’

  ‘Would that include Tabitha King?’

  Miss Silva burst out laughing. ‘God, no! Not that he didn’t try it on, and it clearly upset her, but Tabitha is not remotely interested in men. You know what that makes her, don’t you?’

  ‘A vegan?’ said Campion gently.

  Miss Silva laughed again. ‘Delicately put. I think she actually is a vegan, but you know very well what I meant, because you knew already, didn’t you? I think you’re a bit of a dark horse, Mr Campion, and I like that. But you can rule Tabitha out of the homicide stakes.’