by Tim Heald
‘Knox was laying down rules for writers of crime fiction,’ said Sanders. ‘Not quite the same. And I didn’t say anything about a poison unknown to medical science. I simply said a substance which would prove lethal to Lorraine and Lorraine alone. Doesn’t have to be a poison. Not within the precise meaning of the word.’
‘One man’s poison is another man’s meat.’ Sanders smiled appreciatively. ‘You could put it like that. A policeman wouldn’t, not being of a literary disposition. But talking of meat I missed breakfast and it’s awful cold. Would you mind if we found somewhere to get a bite and a hot drink?’
‘The idea of a hot drink seems in slightly doubtful taste,’ said Cornwall, ‘and I’ve had breakfast. Still...’ He shivered. ‘It is a little cold. And if you’re about to accuse me of murder I think I’d rather hear the accusation sitting down.’
Chapter Nineteen
They found a cafe called a Chip off the Old Block just round the corner from a row of Victorian cottages by the park’s main entrance. It was an old-fashioned chippy in new-fangled clothes, a pastiche greasy-spoon with enamelled advertisements for long forgotten sauces and bed-time drinks, a fifties’ jukebox and a large photograph of Winston Churchill waving a cigar and two fingers.
Sanders ordered chips which came with a fried egg and baked beans on a plate which looked as if it had been deliberately chipped as part of the establishment’s themey image. The waitress wore jeans and a check shirt and had a rouged and lipsticked face which made her look like part of the chorus in Oklahoma.
‘False nostalgia’s a strange animal,’ said Tudor, burning his lips on a half-pint mug of scalding tea. The tea was rough Indian stuff, the sort of char an uncle of his, a retired Gurkha major, used to call servants’ tea. He took it black, no sugar.
‘The lab should be able to break down the mulls into their constituents,’ said Sanders, ‘but tell me about yours and why you chose to do one at all. It seems odd. Something of a presumption after you’d only just arrived. And I wouldn’t have put you down as the sort of man who would get a kick out of concocting exotic alcoholic beverages. Your friend Ashley, perhaps. But not you. I’d mark you down as a person who took his pleasures plain and simple.’
Tudor told him what he had used to elevate the Jolly Jumbuck red wine on to a higher plain.
‘Wattle!’ said the DCI. ‘You don’t get wattle in the UK. What made you go for wattle? It’s indigenous to Oz. It’s like a Pom putting ’roo on a barbie.’
Tudor recognized that the time was fast approaching when he was going to have to own up and tell Sanders about the e-mail instructions from Ashley. If that’s what they were. However, he told himself, the time was not yet. Like most people caught up in a lie, particularly those who are not accustomed to telling them, he could feel the deceit becoming more and more incriminating as time passed. The time to tell Sanders about the e-mail was at the first opportunity, at their first meeting. Every second that elapsed after that first missed opportunity was time not just lost but actively arraigned against him. He knew this perfectly well, but he was still disinclined to own up just yet. Besides, he had not violated truth, just been economical with it. His guilt, therefore, was less than total. Also, his professional pride when confronted with a puzzle or conundrum, insisted that he solved it on his own, and he was still a long way from a solution.
On the other hand he had no ready explanation for using wattles.
‘And Royal Jelly capsules,’ he said, hoping this might distract attention from the wattle.
‘At least that sounds British,’ said Sanders. ‘Sort of honey concentrate?’
‘Sort of,’ Tudor agreed.
Sanders wiped egg yolk from his lips.
‘I don’t get it,’ he said, finally. ‘I don’t understand why you went in for this crazy competition in the first place; and I don’t understand why you should use at least one ingredient which is completely alien to the British Isles. If your drink did kill Lorraine Montagu, and if it was done deliberately, it had to be done by you and I don’t see how you could have a motive. You’d only met the unfortunate woman on one occasion. You couldn’t possibly have a reason to kill her. Unless you had not just met Lorraine for the first time but had known her somewhere else and come all the way to Tasmania in order to murder her.’
He leant back in his chair, raised his mug to his lips, drank and then gazed through narrowed eyes at the Visiting Fellow.
‘I don’t get it,’ he said at last. ‘I admit I’m struggling but it’s early days yet. Our cadaver is hardly cold.’
He smiled.
‘Tell me what you think, oh learned one. You’re the goddamned expert.’
Tudor cleared his throat, on the verge of explaining about the e-mail instructions purporting to come from his absent host but he was saved by the bell.
Literally so, for just as he was about to reveal all, the door opened with the tinny ring of a bell designed to evoke some ill-conceived figment of an ill-remembered past and in walked the Professor of Oenology and the Reader in Green Studies. Jazz Trethewey was looking more hippily elfin than ever and Tasman Penhaligon likewise in his role as the not-so-gentle giant. They also looked conspiratorial to the point at which a casual observer might have perceived them to be an item and a clandestine and illicit one at that. Spotting Tudor and Greg Sanders they both started with what could really only have been some form of guilt. Professor Trethewey smiled in an uncomfortable grimacing apology for a greeting and Dr Penhaligon stared frowningly straight over their head at an advertisement for Milo. Obviously discomfited, they headed for a corner table, sat down, and made a studied ploy of staring intently at the menu.
Sanders raised his eyebrows at Cornwall, inviting some response.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said Tudor. ‘You forget I’ve only just arrived. I’m a stranger in town. New kid on the block. I’ve hardly met these people.’
‘Don’t think I hadn’t noticed. It’s only your novelty value and your international reputation that are keeping you out of serious trouble so far. And I don’t know how much longer that’s going to be so.’
‘You haven’t asked about Ashley Carpenter coming back.’
Tudor knew the change of subject was over-obvious but he was hoping that the unexpected arrival of his new colleagues might have disrupted the policeman’s thought process even more thoroughly than the jogger in the park. It was observable that though the Chief Inspector seemed bright enough, his mind had a febrile, butterfly quality quite unlike the dogged relentlessness that Tudor had, over the years, come to associate with most professional police detectives. They were like Isaiah Berlin’s tortoise. They knew one big thing and this limited but inexorable knowledge often paid dividends in the end. Sanders on the other hand was a Berlin hare. A bit flashy for a pro. Too much speculation, too much dancing around from one theory to another, too clever by half, not enough bottom.
‘Should I?’ Greg Sanders answered his question with a question, a response which always infuriated Cornwall when it was tried by his students, even though in truth it was what his interactive style of teaching was inclined to encourage.
‘You must agree it’s odd,’ said Cornwall, aware even as he said it that this was the sort of sentence which would never stand up in court. Not the sort of thing one should say to a bright young policeman, even in Tasmania.
‘Life’s odd. You know that. Lorraine Montagu’s dead. That’s odd too. But there’s a difference of degree, don’t you think?’
The Rodgers and Hammerstein waitress came over with a coffee pot, smiled winsomely at Sanders and filled his mug. Tudor asked if he could have more tea and she pouted as if to say she supposed so but he’d got a bloody nerve asking. Tudor felt old and far from home.
‘You don’t think they’re connected?’ he asked.
‘Should I?’
‘Well.’ Tudor was on the verge of telling Sanders about the e-mails when he was saved by Jazz Trethewey. She pulled up a chair and sat down u
nbidden. Her sang-froid seemed to have deserted her and she seemed almost dishevelled, nearly flustered.
‘There’s something I have to say,’ she said, breathlessly. She was alone. Penhaligon was still at their table glowering into space. Tudor found it hard to believe that Penhaligon was a doctor of anything – even green studies.
Sanders regarded her levelly over the chipped rim of his cup.
‘Shoot,’ he said.
‘I owe Dr Cornwall an apology,’ she said. ‘It was meant to be a joke. That’s what he said. Never did seem that funny but I thought it was harmless enough. Until last night.’
‘Who said what was a joke?’ said Sanders, seeming severe, as if his time were being wasted.
‘The disappearance,’ said Jazz, as if he were a backward member of her first-year winemakers’ class. ‘Ashley’s absent-without-leave performance. It was a practical joke.’
‘Jokes are supposed to be funny,’ said Sanders. ‘They’re intended to be humorous, meant to have a point. How come performing an unexplained vanishing trick is such a bloody riot? I don’t see it.’
Jazz Trethewey flushed. ‘The only reason it was funny was because of Dr Cornwall. Ashley told us he was... well, he told us he was a typical pompous Pom... needed taking down a peg or two. We didn’t know any different so we went along with it. Then it turned out that, well...’ She seemed almost girlishly embarrassed.
‘Please,’ said Sanders.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘Penhaligon over there doesn’t think I should be telling you this. I’m not sure I should be telling you either. But at least make it easy for me. I don’t have to be here. I don’t have to be doing this. I’m helping you, so help me, for Chris’sake!’
‘I think,’ said Cornwall, ‘that the Chief Inspector is more interested in an unexplained death than an illusory disappearance. Personally I’m riveted by what you have to say about Ashley but it’s not a police matter. Greg here is trying to explain death. You’re giving us a reading on life. He’s not interested in that.
Murder is about dead people. You want to tell him about Ashley but Ashley is alive whereas Lorraine is dead. Ergo, Greg thinks you’re wasting his time. You can’t blame him.’
Jazz grimaced.
‘I’m not trying to waste anyone’s time. I’m a professional academic. That means I have an open mind, a curious mind. Academic study is about the resolution of uncertainty. I’m trying to resolve a small mystery. I agree I’m not solving the main problem but there’s linkage here. Lorraine’s death affects us all, has been affected by us all in turn. I can’t prove that Ashley’s little joke has anything to do with it but it’s a peculiar coincidence to put it mildly.’ in that case,’ said DCI Sanders with asperity, ‘we agree. It’s a peculiar coincidence. And I’m happy to put it mildly too. But in real life I have more serious things to deal with.’
‘That sounds pretty bloody pompous,’ said the Professor of Wine. ‘You have an unexpected, unexplained sudden death; you have an unexpected, unexplained sudden disappearance and you rule out the possibility of any connection between the two without even listening to what I have to tell you.’
The policeman finished his coffee.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I have things to discuss with Dr Cornwall. You obviously have things to discuss with Dr Cornwall. May I suggest that you allow me to finish my discussion with him and then you can take over and have your own discussion?’
Professor Trethewey glared, thought for a moment, then rose and stomped off wordlessly to Tasman Penhaligon who glowered still but looked like a man vindicated.
‘Did you have to be quite so rude?’ asked Tudor, when she was out of earshot.
‘Best policy,’ said Sanders laconically. ‘I know her sort: give her half a chance and she’d take over the whole investigation. Most of the world thinks it would make a better job of being a policeman than the police. You know that. In a way’ – and he smiled – ‘you and your sort are the worst offenders. But at least you’re a specialist even if your expertise is academic. People like Professor Trethewey are intellectually superior ignoramuses. Pain in the bum. I wouldn’t challenge her on her own subject so I don’t see why she should challenge me on mine.’
‘I doubt that,’ said Cornwall. ‘I bet you’re even more of a wine “expert” than she is a crime “expert.” “Anything but Chardonnay.” “Amused by its presumption.” Be fair. She was only trying to help. I happen to think she may also be right. I think there may well be a connection between Ashley going AWOL and Lorraine choking on the mulled wine.’
Sanders sighed and made check-signing motions at the waitress.
‘With respect,’ he said, ‘even you are not exempt from the idea that detection is based on the sort of intuitive processes which fuel fiction. I’m not Sherlock Holmes much less Hercule Poirot. Little grey cells are crucial but they work with modern science. The lab reports will solve this little mystery.’
He grinned as the jeansy waitress brought the bill.
‘The lab reports are going to tell me exactly what you put in the drink. Once I know that I’ll know how Lorraine Montagu died. And why.’
‘That I doubt,’ said Tudor, also irritated.
They pushed back their chairs and went. Sanders did not acknowledge the two academics whose malevolent gaze followed their departure. Cornwall however allowed himself a more or less furtive glance and a fleeting smile at Professor Trethewey. His gesture was acknowledged, just as fleetingly, just as furtively.
Chapter Twenty
Cornwall and the detective parted company at the entrance to the college. They did so on terms which could be best described as scratchy. Over the years Tudor had often found his relations with the police uneasy. They respected his knowledge and his opinions but there was, nearly always, a strong element of the ‘those that can, do, those that can’t, teach.’
Even at home the chief constable, whom he had known for years and regarded as a friend, would, on occasion, say, ‘Tudor, it’s one thing to solve crimes in your ivory tower, dreaming away with your learned papers and academic theories, but it’s quite another to do it in real life. When you’re working at the coal face, murder takes on a rather different complexion.’
Or words to that effect.
And after years of trying, Tudor had more or less given up the struggle. He believed passionately in the value of the university, in learning for learning’s sake, in the contribution to be made by thought and research and study away from the constraints and limitations of what the chief constable called ‘Real Life’. ‘Real Life’ in his book was a messy business which, left to its own devices, would always end in tears. It needed the cool light of reason and knowledge to improve it and miners at the rock face like the chief constable – a particularly inapposite simile in the chief constable’s case – needed the corrective insights of intellects like his.
Men and women like the chief constable, however, never listened let alone understood these arguments and so nowadays Tudor would simply shrug and hope that in due course he would be able to demonstrate that he had a point.
So, outside St Petroc’s, he smiled a wispy, half-defeated little smile and said that he wished DCI Sanders well in his endeavours and looked forward to hearing from him again when he had the report from the lab. He sensed, more than usual, that the policeman was torn between admiration for his work and resentment of his intrusion. At least Sanders read the learned journals, was aware of his well-researched and rigorously argued papers and articles. That made a pleasant change. Tudor also sensed that Sanders suspected him of being economic with the facts, of telling him less than the whole truth. In this, of course, he was correct, and Tudor felt a pang of guilt as well as being uncertain about why he was concealing the matter of the e-mails. He would have to own up in the end but before he did he wanted to be more sure about what precisely it was that he was owning up to.
Oh, for a simple life! This was supposed to be a sabbatical. Featherweight teaching duties. Accessibility
to students in an undemanding, sociable, drink-at-the-bar sort of way. All port and pleasantry.
‘So when forensics have done their stuff I’ll be in touch,’ said Sanders. ‘I’ll value your thoughts, I really will.’
‘Of course,’ said Tudor. Anything I can do to help.’
‘I appreciate it,’ said Sanders, then hesitated. ‘I don’t mean any offence,’ he said, ‘but I think you’re caught up in this – whatever it is. You can’t do the omniscient detached professor act this time. You’re involved, however obliquely. And, like I say, I mean no offence but you may need help as much as I do. Only in a different way.’
Tudor shivered involuntarily. They were his thoughts precisely. Rather more precisely indeed than his own thoughts which were still uncharacteristically inarticulate. Trust a bright copper to cut through the crap.
‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘I appreciate what you’re saying. You’re right. It’s a novel experience and not one I’m entirely happy with.’
‘I can see that,’ said Sanders. ‘So don’t forget: a problem shared is a problem halved. Or whatever.’
They shook hands. The gesture was oddly formal. Tudor was not much given to shaking hands. Physical contact of all kinds was something about which he was unusually fastidious. As the policeman finally walked away Tudor found himself looking down at his fingers with distaste, almost as if they might have been contaminated.
Then he heard his name being called and realized he was day-dreaming.
‘Sorry, Sammy,’ he said, almost physically pulling himself together, ‘I was somewhere else.’
‘Wish I was, sir,’ said Sammy, grinning. ‘Message from the Principal. She wants to see you. In the Lodge. Whenever you can make it. She said it was urgent. Doesn’t mind being disturbed.’
‘Right you are, Sammy,’ he said. Any idea what it’s about?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’