Death and the Visiting Fellow

by Tim Heald

  Or would he?

  ‘Oh, Dr Cornwall,’ came the prickly voice of the Principal out of the gloaming, ‘the police are anxious for a word. I volunteered tomorrow morning at nine o’clock in my office. Is that all right?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ said Tudor.

  ‘Only a detective constable I’m afraid,’ said Dame Edith, ‘which presumably indicates the level of importance they’re attaching to the matter.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s perfectly competent,’ he said.

  ‘She as a matter of fact,’ said the Dame. ‘A lady detective.’

  ‘How very fashionable,’ said Tudor. He had written papers on women in crime, Christie to Cornwell, Miss Marples’ heiresses, and other such subjects. His considered opinion was that, given the conservatism of most police forces, female cops were more prevalent in fiction than in real life. But never mind.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ he said.

  Chapter Six

  The Bob Hawke Room was sepulchral and fusty, dark-panelled and stained-glass windowed. Tasmanian landscapes, both oil and water, hung from a mahogany picture-rail against a three-dimensional wallpaper the colour of old teeth. It reminded Cornwall of the dimmer recesses of the Westminster Houses of Parliament – Pugin pretension overlaid with dust and decay. On numerous occasions he had sat in such surroundings as an expert witness in self-important and interminable enquiries whose findings were banal, self-evident, wrong-headed and inconsequential. Nobody ever acted upon them, unless there were compelling reasons of self-interest.

  It was just so this evening. On a long white-clothed table there were six bottles of red wine and two slender green halves of what Tudor supposed was sticky stuff – the local equivalent of five puttonyos Tokay or chateau-bottled sweet Sauternes. There were several glasses, two plates of water biscuits, a couple of spittoons.

  ‘Hail, Fellow! Well met!’ said Dr Penhaligon, his nose deep in a glass of Yarra Valley magenta. Before Tudor could think of a witty riposte, the Reader in Green Studies continued, ‘Listen, mate, the reds are spankers,’ and laughed.

  ‘Pay no attention,’ said Professor Trethewey, looking up from a deftly executed spit of purple shiraz grenache mourvedre from McLaren Vale. ‘Tasman’s quoting. It’s a line from one of our leading winemakers. Good eh?’

  Doctor Cornwall felt mildly fazed. He liked Australians but you could never be quite sure when they were taking the mick. He was led to believe that they felt the same about Poms.

  ‘In England, the best thing you used to be able to say about a wine was that you would be amused by its presumption,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure, even now, that “listen mate, the reds are spankers” is quite the sort of line that’s going to appeal to my friends at Berry Brothers.’

  He knew halfway through the sentence that he was sounding pompous.

  ‘All the same, I’m sure your reds are right little spankers.’

  This, he suspected, only made it worse.

  Tasman Penhaligon was looking at him as if he were a sapling ready for the chop.

  ‘Have a glass,’ said Jazz. ‘The main thing is we want to get that ghastly Wallaby Creek off the college list. We think the Principal has shares in the company. There’s no other reason for having it in the house.’

  ‘I had some of their sherry before lunch,’ said Tudor. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’

  ‘Not exactly a “spanker” though,’ said Penhaligon, pouring him a generous measure from the first bottle.

  ‘What am I drinking?’ Tudor asked, eyeing his glass with suspicion.

  ‘They’re all blends,’ said the Professor of Oenology, ‘with an emphasis on pinot. The climate here suits pinot. Soil too. What do you think of A, Tasman?’ she asked, turning an enquiring gaze on the bearded ecologist.

  ‘Strong hint of wattle,’ said Penhaligon. ‘Undertones of yabby, or maybe Morton Bay Bug. Suspicion of Vegemite on the nose, but that turns to chocolate on the palate. Would go with a kangaroo carpaccio. Pie and mash too. I’d give it six out of ten.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Professor Trethewey. And what do you think, Dr Cornwall? That’s A that you’re drinking now.’

  Tudor frowned, sniffed, scrutinized, swirled, slurped and spat. ‘I think I might give it a seven,’ he said. ‘Good fruit. Colour’s OK. It’s very nice.’

  ‘There’s pencil and paper,’ said the professor. ‘Just carry on with the work while we talk. Basically we just need to choose one of these little spankers as the official college red. Also one of the two pudding wines. We can get any of them at cost.’ She winked. ‘Between us, Tasman and I know most everyone in the industry. At least here in Tasmania.’

  There was a brief silence while all three made a self-conscious play of serious wine-tasting. Then Tasman Penhaligon said, ‘Doctor Cornwall, we have to talk to you about your friend Ashley.’

  ‘Do please call me Tudor,’ he said.

  ‘When did you last see Ashley?’ asked Jazz Trethewey.

  Tudor replied truthfully that he had seen him nine months earlier at the Toronto conference but that he had stayed in contact on the phone and by e-mail on a regular basis.

  The professor puckered her lips, more in thought than distaste for the wine.

  ‘How was he in Toronto?’ she asked.

  ‘He was fine,’ said Tudor. ‘Same as always. Played hard, worked hard.’

  ‘You didn’t notice anything odd?’ asked Tasman. ‘Any deviation from the norm?’ He spat, professionally but noisily. ‘Was old Ashley his usual self?’

  Tudor didn’t care for his tone.

  ‘What exactly are you implying?’ he asked.

  Jazz Trethewey obviously sensed trouble.

  ‘I don’t think Tasman is implying anything,’ she said, silkily. ‘It’s just that we’ve been concerned about Ashley and as you’re an old friend of his we felt we ought to share our concern.’

  Tudor smelled rats.

  ‘What sort of concern?’ he asked.

  Jazz and Tasman looked at each other conspiratorially, then turned away and concentrated on their wine as if to say that this was a delicate matter and perhaps they had done wrong to raise it.

  ‘Sex,’ said Tasman. ‘Your friend Ashley was in trouble with sex.’

  Tudor felt the odour of rodent intensify. He presumed that the two academics knew of the charges of sexual harassment that had been levelled against his old friend. However, he had no idea whether they knew that he knew. His naturally cautious inclination was to say nothing. Or at least as little as possible.

  What he actually said was, ‘Sex?’

  The moment he uttered it he knew that he had got the inflection quite wrong and that he was sounding more and more like a priggish Pom.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tudor,’ said Jazz, giving a little moue which seemed designed to convey equal measures of sympathy and exasperation. ‘But several of the girls in college have complained that Ashley’s been making unacceptable sexual overtures. It’s looking bad. Both Tasman and I have been aware for some time that there was something unhealthy in Ashley’s attitude towards some of the women students.’

  ‘With respect…’ began Tudor, then wished he hadn’t. ‘Ashley’s a very old friend. That’s simply not his style. Quite apart from anything else there’s no need. Ashley’s extremely attractive to the opposite sex.’

  ‘Was, maybe,’ said Penhaligon, ‘but he’s beginning to show his age. Last year’s Lothario is this year’s Dirty Old Man. My information is that the red wine isn’t the only spanker in college.’

  ‘Give me a break!’ said Tudor, and then, guiltily, remembered the alleged thief and the disturbing effect she had had on him.

  ‘Do you have the slightest evidence for any of this?’ he asked, a slight tremor creeping in to his voice. It was infuriating, but these two seemed to bring out all the old woman in him. It was not like him normally. He was not in the least bit prudish and was known at the University of Wessex as something of a spade-caller. Here, he became more and more of a parodic Pom with every
second.

  ‘I’m afraid we do,’ said Jazz.

  ‘Such as?’ asked Tudor.

  ‘Female students seen coming and going from his rooms at all hours of the day and night.’

  ‘He’s a tutor, for heaven’s sake. Of course students come in and out of his room.’

  ‘Funny,’ said Penhaligon, ‘how they always seem to be girls.’

  ‘Who’s watching anyway?’ asked Tudor. ‘Is someone spying on him?’

  ‘Any case,’ said the axeman, ‘these weren’t his criminal studies students. He’d started a new course of what he called Freshmen’s Essays. So these were vulnerable first-year students lured to his room on the pretext of writing essays on “the meaning of life” or some such garbage.’

  He took a swig of red wine and swallowed without spitting. Tudor suddenly realized that he was two-thirds of the way towards becoming drunk.

  ‘I think Freshmen’s Essays are a great idea,’ he said. ‘Ashley and I were brought up on them.’

  ‘I think they’re something of a red herring,’ said Jazz Trethewey, who was spitting out every drop of alcohol that passed her lips and who seemed, if such a thing were possible, several degrees on the minus side of sober. Tudor felt that even after a couple of stiff Scotches she wouldn’t even be at the limit let alone over it. The point is,’ she continued, ‘that several of the girls had made complaints about Ashley.’

  ‘Like what?’ Tudor was on to bottle C. So far they all seemed a bit thin and vinegary, despite what he had said about A.

  ‘Ashley had been making suggestions,’ she said.

  ‘About spanking,’ said Penhaligon. ‘Isn’t that what the French call le vice anglais? Something you get addicted to in your single-sex boarding-schools. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘You’re telling me that Ashley’s female pupils are suggesting that he asked them to indulge in some form of flagellation.’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Jazz, glancing at her colleague with irritation as he took another gulp of spanking red. ‘We do have spittoons, Tasman,’ she said.

  Tudor made a big play of swirling his glass of C and holding it against the white cloth to test for colour.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but this all seems extraordinarily circumstantial. What exactly are you suggesting?’

  ‘We can’t know for certain,’ said Jazz, trying hard to seem sympathetic and understanding, ‘But we have thought Ashley’s behaviour somewhat suspicious. And there have been allegations. And he does seem to have vanished. And one can’t help putting two and two together.’

  ‘You haven’t got two and two,’ said Tudor with a wintry smile. ‘I make three.’

  He knew he shouldn’t have said it.

  ‘You Poms,’ said Penhaligon. ‘All the same. Smart-arse, superior.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Tudor, ‘that I understand exactly what you’re getting at. You’re trying to tell me that Ashley has turned into some sort of sex maniac; that he has been harassing female students, and that consequently he’s done a bunk. All this just as I come on the scene. I can’t say that it makes a lot of sense.’

  ‘I think we have to assume that your arrival is purely coincidental,’ said Jazz, ‘although if things were to come to a head during your stay here then that would compound Ashley’s embarrassment. What we are saying is that Ashley has gone off the rails sexually, that he has been behaving in a manner inappropriate to his status; that his chooks were coming home to roost, and he has escaped in order to avoid facing the music. Is that right, Tasman?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said.

  ‘Doesn’t sound right to me,’ said Tudor. ‘It seems far more likely that either he has decided to take a quick break, which is unlikely just when he’s said he’ll meet me at the airport etcetera etcetera. Or that he has got lost in the bush. Or that he has been abducted by person or persons unknown. Possibly even been murdered.’

  ‘That sounds pretty far-fetched,’ said Penhaligon.

  ‘Not as far-fetched as the idea that he’s taken flight because of a few completely unsubstantiated allegations about sexual groping.’

  Tudor was angry.

  Penhaligon was drunk.

  Jazz Trethewey was emollient.

  ‘Tudor,’ she said. ‘You don’t mind if I call you Tudor, do you? We’re not saying the sex stuff is definitely true. But we are saying that it’s been alleged. And we wouldn’t be being either fair or honest if we didn’t tell you about it. You must see that, surely?’

  Tudor, aware that he was sounding less than gracious, said that he supposed so.

  ‘But what,’ he wanted to know, ‘are we to do?’

  ‘I think we just have to wait for him to reappear and face the music.’

  ‘But what if you’re wrong?’ said Tudor. ‘What if he’s dead, or lost, or injured, or kidnapped?’

  ‘We don’t think he’s any of those things,’ said Penhaligon.

  ‘But you don’t know,’ insisted Tudor. ‘And that’s crucial. If any of those things are even remotely possible we have a duty to do something.’

  ‘But if your friend’s disappearing act is voluntary, then our doing something is the last thing he’d want,’ said Jazz.

  ‘That’s too many ifs and buts,’ said Tudor, spitting out a mouthful of vinegary pinot noir. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have to go to bed. It’s been a long flight and a long day. And by the way, if I were the wine committee I think I’d give all this stuff a miss.’ It was, he knew, a bad-tempered, even churlish, exit line but that was how he was feeling. He did, however, manage to say ‘Good-night’ and his hosts replied in kind. None of them sounded as if they meant it.

  Chapter Seven

  The policewoman seemed almost as young as the college thief though not as nubile, being short and squat with rust-coloured hair and freckles. When Tudor entered the Dame’s office she was sitting on the very edge of one of the capacious armchairs looking as nervous as a student hauled in for a disciplinary hearing.

  Her name was Karen. Police Constable Karen White. She wanted to know if Tudor would like to come with her to Parsnip Field Road half way up the Wurlitzer. This was where Ashley’s car was parked.

  The Dame had no objection. The Dame seemed rather short of temper this morning, as if, suddenly, overnight, the whole business of Professor Carpenter had gone from disturbing to merely tiresome. It appeared to the Visiting Fellow as if she wanted him out of the way. After all, her role in life was researching the echidna and presiding over college affairs. Not impersonating Miss Marple.

  ‘The fresh air will do you good, Dr Cornwall,’ she said, with the authority of one who, even at her advanced age, was an accomplished bush walker still sound in wind and limb. ‘And I think you should see as much of the state as possible while you’re with us. I hear, incidentally, that you weren’t taken with any of the wines last night.’

  She said nothing about solving crimes or disappearing persons. Evidently she had been talking to Tasman Penhaligon or Jazz Trethewey. One or other of them had obviously put in a bad word for him. He would have preferred to have Dame Edith on side, as she had seemed the previous day. Given time, he reckoned, he would win her back, but now was not the time.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have to confess I wasn’t hugely impressed. Maybe it was jet lag. Air travel always plays havoc with my taste buds.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Dame Edith’s smile was wintry. Tudor wondered if either of last night’s wine tasters had passed on his true opinion of the Dame’s Wallaby Creek sherry.

  Outside, Cornwall and the young WPC did not exchange words until they had fastened their seat belts and were heading towards the mountain. The police car was Japanese, regulation white with standard police trimmings. WPC White drove it with exemplary efficiency and economy. Nothing flashy but nothing limp-wristed either.

  ‘So,’ began Tudor, ‘is this an official police matter?’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’ she asked, changing gear briskly
as the gradient steepened.

  ‘I mean are you investigating a crime?’

  ‘There’s no evidence to suggest a crime’s been committed, sir,’ she said, ‘but the circumstances seem suspicious. If the professor doesn’t show up soon, I guess we’ll have to start looking properly.’

  ‘You mean you’re not looking properly?’

  She grinned. ‘“Seek and ye shall find”,’ she said. ‘But if there’s nothing to seek you can’t find. We can’t look properly for a missing person if no person has been declared properly – or officially – missing. It’s the rule. Your friend the professor isn’t missing as far as the authorities are concerned.’

  ‘Even though he is missing?’

  ‘He’s only missing as far as you’re concerned,’ she said. ‘Legally he’s just not where you want or expect him to be which isn’t at all the same thing.’

  ‘You’re saying the law is an ass.’ Tudor was beginning to like the policewoman. He watched with admiration as she negotiated a steep upward hairpin and accelerated in to a dark avenue of antipodean evergreens. They had only been driving a few minutes yet already the city seemed impossibly distant. There was not a house in sight.

  ‘So how do you define “missing” in Tasmania?’ he asked, aware yet again that he was sounding like a pompous Pom.

  ‘Much like you, I guess,’ she stalled. ‘We’re a former colony. Most of our laws and procedures are pretty much like they are in Britain. Or so I’ve been told.’

  ‘That’s not an answer,’ said Tudor.

  ‘No, sir,’ she agreed, happily.

  Cornwall regarded her with an avuncular amusement which fell short of disapproval but was aimed in that direction.

  ‘Technically,’ he said, entering academic mode, ‘missing means “not found” or “not in its place”. Thus, if one says there is a missing page that means that there is a page one and a page three but no page two. There is a presumption that page two should have existed. Perhaps it did once exist and has been torn out or otherwise removed. Perhaps the book was badly bound or printed and it never existed at all. Either way the page is presumed missing.’