by Tim Heald
Like many people in his position, thought Tudor, Sammy teetered on the brink of insolence. This was, he acknowledged, a ridiculous thought in this egalitarian age and he would have been revolted if anyone thought he craved deference. Yet there was a difference between deference and respect. Respect was what premiership football clubs gave each other. It wouldn’t have come amiss from the college servant.
Jesus, he said to himself. Tudor, stop being so pompous. No wonder they’re playing practical jokes on you.
He wondered if Dame Edith was in on the act. On balance he thought not.
Chapter Twenty-One
She was painting when he entered after a tentative knock had been greeted with a stentorian ‘Come!’ She was sitting at an easel wearing a tattered, oil-stained, tangerine-coloured smock and a green beret which looked more Royal Marine Commando than Montmartre. The same might be said of its owner even if she were demonstrably past her prime.
Tudor approached the easel and was impressed. The Dame was painting an echidna and doing so with an immaculate technique and precision that was in apparent conflict with what Tudor had too readily dismissed as the scattiness of the archetypal don. He had forgotten that she had once excelled in the cutthroat trade of politics. Also that she was internationally respected in her area of science. The picture wasn’t what a critic would have called art but it was a meticulous representation of what these small antipodean hedgehoggy-porcupines actually looked like. At least that was how it seemed to Cornwall. He had yet to actually see an echidna in the wild but he was convinced by Dame Edith’s rendition.
‘Brilliant!’ said Cornwall, trying not to sound patronizing but only half-succeeding.
‘I’m no Lucien Freud,’ she said, ‘nor even Grandma Moses or Mabel Lucy Attwell, but for what they are they could hardly be bettered.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ Cornwall was not sure of his place but wherever it was he definitely felt put in it.
‘Do you know anything about art?’
‘Well...’ He took what he considered an intelligent layman’s interest but was swept aside before he could explain it. ‘Or echidnas?’
‘We don’t have echidnas in the United Kingdom. Hedgehogs.’
‘I don’t suppose you know the first thing about hedgehogs either,’ she said testily, ‘but why should you? It’s a relatively arcane subject which I happen to have made my own. Everyone to their last. I know nothing about Jack the Ripper or Osama Bin Laden which you obviously do. It’s a matter of taste.’
Tudor wasn’t sure about this but this was not the moment to pick a fight.
‘In any event, you can take it from me that as a representation of an echidna this is as good as it gets. Besides, I find that painting eases stress, and at the moment I’m feeling exceedingly stressed. My stress levels have risen dramatically since you arrived on the scene and I’m bound to say that the two strike me as likely to be closely related.’
Tudor began to expostulate but she cut him short.
‘I know, I know. It’s not your fault.’
She didn’t sound particularly convinced. ‘Look.’ She got up from her stool, set down her brush and re-established herself at the leathery chair behind her partner’s desk. There she paused and gazed at him appraisingly, as if seeing him for the first time. ‘I’m not getting any younger.’
Tudor was tempted to say either ‘You could have fooled me’, or ‘Which of us is?’, but felt that either response was inadvisable. All the same he never ceased to be amazed by the shallows of banality in which great minds so frequently became beached.
He said nothing.
‘I have been minded to retire for some little while.’
Who did she think she was? Queen Elizabeth the First?
‘One of the several problems with running an organization of any kind is that there are so few people in whom one can confide. It has been as difficult to be entirely honest with the Fellows of St Petroc’s as it used to be with my fellow Cabinet ministers in my days of government.’
She paused, partly for effect, and partly to expectorate in an emphysymatic manner which called for a spittoon though one was not available. A cat on the sofa jerked awake and looked at her reproachfully.
‘I used to talk to Lorraine,’ she said.
For a moment she seemed uncharacteristically affected. A red and white spotted handkerchief was withdrawn from one of the smock’s capacious sleeves and dabbed to damely cheeks.
‘As non-academic staff,’ she said, ‘Lorraine was the only person of any intelligence and experience at St Petroc’s with whom I could discuss my retirement. Everyone else viewed themselves, reasonably or not, as a potential successor. Because of this I naturally had to play my cards close to my chest.’
Cornwall had a sudden nightmarish vision of being clasped to that capacious camphor-scented bosom and winced despite himself.
She gave him a sharp but uncomprehending look.
‘Now that Lorraine has been taken from us in such a dramatic and unexpected manner, I have no one in whom I can safely confide. Except perhaps you.’
Cornwall nodded. He too could play cards close to his chest. He said nothing.
‘May I trust you?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Well you would say that, wouldn’t you?’
This was true and once more silence seemed the only response.
‘I suppose we must suspect what in your neck of the academic woods you doubtless refer to as foul play?’
‘It’s not for me to say,’ said Cornwall cautiously. ‘The police seem perfectly competent. More than usually so I’d judge. DCI Sanders seems particularly bright.’
‘Don’t care for the cut of his jib,’ said the Dame.
Cornwall guessed she was referring to his dress code, or lack of one. Sanders was not someone who would pass sartorial muster at high table.
‘That’s by the way,’ she said. ‘Between you and me I was on the verge of announcing my retirement but with the college in such turmoil it seems hardly the time. What do you think?’
‘Probably not,’ said Cornwall. ‘St Petroc’s has enough going on without a leadership election to contend with.’
‘Quite so. I’m sure Lorraine would have thought the same, God bless her. Naturally the issue is complicated by the fact that at least two of the Fellows regard themselves as contenders for the job.’
‘Ashley and Jazz Trethewey?’
The Dame shot him a sharp look which suggested he had risen a notch in her estimation though from a low base.
‘Brad is far too young and Tasman Penhaligon far too mad,’ she said.
‘But you came from outside? It doesn’t have to be an internal candidate?’
‘Correct.’ She smiled the sort of smile the TV compere would reserve for the weakest link. ‘But I was a St Petroc’s girl: I had a certain standing in both the public and academic worlds, and though I shouldn’t admit it, there were no other serious candidates. The college tradition is that the Principal comes alternately from within and without. Having myself been a Petrockian but not a collegiate candidate I count as an outsider. Unless we depart from tradition the next Principal must be drawn from the Fellowship.’
‘Which, in effect, means Jazz or Ashley.’
‘Precisely so.’
‘And now, suddenly you don’t fancy either of them as your successor.’
‘Well, young man, the words nail and head spring speedily to mind. So what do you propose?’
Saying which she leant back and waited.
‘It may not seem so to you,’ said Dame Edith, ‘but in this part of the world St Petroc’s is regarded as rather a plum. It may seem fanciful but I think I’m not exaggerating if I suggest that both Jazz and Ashley would die for it.’
‘Which is not the same as saying that they would kill for it,’ said Cornwall.
‘I don’t think this is a moment for flippancy,’ she said.
Tudor hadn’t meant to seem flippant. He bit his tongue an
d buttoned his lip.
‘Until the other day Ashley would have been my preferred candidate. Now I’m not so sure. As for Professor Trethewey she has much to commend her, but... But.’
It was such a little word but ejected from the Principal’s puckered lips, such a damning one as well.
‘I’ll be frank,’ she said.
Cornwall nodded.
‘Until a week or so ago I would have said I knew Ashley Carpenter quite well.’ She looked plaintive. ‘I’m not sure whether I believe in the male menopause but if there is such a thing I’d say Ashley was going through it. I don’t think he was treating poor Lorraine at all well though she never complained.’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘Not a word. Whenever I tried to get her to open up she changed the subject. She was very open and honest with me about most things but definitely not about Ashley. And then there’s Ashley’s relationship with this little minx Elizabeth Burney. I simply don’t know what’s been going on there. Ashley maintains he’s simply been taking a paternal interest in her, acting as her moral tutor. Says he feels sorry for her. Just because she’s barely out of her teens doesn’t mean to say she can’t run rings round someone as goofy as Ashley. Oh dear.’
Tudor suddenly felt sorry for the old bat. She didn’t deserve all this hassle at her time of life. One of the cats yawned and stretched.
‘And then he goes wandering off up the Wurlitzer without telling anyone and then reappears without so much as a by-your-leave. What do you make of it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tudor truthfully. ‘It’s been suggested that it might have been some form of practical joke.’
‘I’ve always loathed practical jokes,’ said the Dame, standing up again, walking purposefully to her painting and staring at it intently with beetling brows. ‘Extraordinarily pleasant temperaments, echidnas,’ she said. ‘Hedgehogs too. Far more agreeable than humans. If I had my life again I’d have been one. And I’d certainly have devoted more time to them. Human beings have, on the whole, been a terrible disappointment. Don’t you agree?’
‘I suppose so.’
She sat down again, heavily. ‘So what do you think? Was poor Lorraine murdered? If so how and by whom? Did Ashley vanish of his own accord or was he abducted? If so, why in both cases and by whom in the latter?’
‘Who had a plausible motive for murdering Lorraine?’
The Dame chewed her lip.
‘Lorraine had been here a long time. She and I discussed confidential matters. Everyone knew that. She knew where the skeletons were buried, to borrow that unfortunate phrase.’
‘Were there a lot of skeletons?’
‘There are always skeletons in a community like this. She knew more than I did. She told me a little about them, it’s true, but only what she felt I needed to know. She also had the ear of the governing body. More than me I’m afraid, and that’s important.’
‘Why so?’
‘Like most governing bodies they’re a rubber stamp outfit but they do technically vote in the new Principal. It’s customary to listen to my recommendations, but they don’t have to pay the slightest attention. But they liked Lorraine. We all liked Lorraine.’
The Principal sniffed.
T warned her about becoming entangled with Ashley but she wouldn’t listen. She said she was afraid of life passing her by. I think she had me in her sights as a matter of fact but that’s another story. She didn’t fancy being an old maid like me. My advice was that she was better off with echidnas than Ashley but–’
‘Are you suggesting that Ashley was... unreliable or... what exactly are you suggesting?’
‘May I be frank?’
‘You are.’ At least he thought she was. It could have been some sort of bluff.
‘I know that Ashley is a very old friend of yours.’
‘I’m beginning to have my doubts.’ This was true and frank. He felt he owed it to her.
‘What I said about the male menopause,’ she said, ‘I think that may be true whatever it means. But I have a feeling that it may be more significant than that. My sense is that Ashley is suddenly coming to terms with failure. Succeeding me in this post, unglamorous as I’m sure it seems to you, is a last throw of the dice for him. Quite suddenly he’s realized that if he doesn’t get this there’s nothing left. He’s never going to write that great book; he’s never going to be awarded that prestigious chair in Criminal Studies at Harvard or Yale or Oxford or Cambridge. Principal of St Petroc’s would give him a platform, a handle. It may not be All Souls or even Massey college but it has a certain cachet. Ashley could use it as a passport to greater things and it would reassure him that his achievements are not as second-rate as he fears.’
Cornwall frowned.
‘So Ashley was unduly keen to succeed you. That’s not a crime. Ambition is usually regarded as healthy.’
‘Not if it becomes obsessive.’
Tudor had little craving for title or rank. He loved his work with a passion and wanted only to do it to the limit of his abilities. That was reward in itself. He understood that others needed recognition whether from their peers or the world at large but his understanding was theoretical rather than emotional. He saw that others acted from different motivations, their clocks ticking from a different spring as it were. But he didn’t quite get it. It was what made him such a good academic. He was easily able to take the dispassionate over-view, never became over-sympathetic to his subject.
‘So?’ he asked.
‘So nothing,’ said the Dame. ‘I’m thinking out loud and I’m using you as a sounding board. A response or two would be welcome but is not essential. That’s not the point of the exercise. I need to order my thoughts and I find it helpful to have a second party to assist in that enterprise. It was what Lorraine was so adept at.’
‘What you seem to be saying,’ said Cornwall, ‘is that Ashley is going off the rails. But it’s all hunch and hypothesis.’
‘Not entirely,’ she said. ‘First of all he develops a relationship with Lorraine. Not done. You don’t sleep with other members of the same organization if you’re unmarried. Particularly if it’s an academic institution.’
‘Isn’t that a rather old-fashioned view?’
‘I am old-fashioned. So is St Petroc’s. So is Tasmania.’
‘Even so,’ said Cornwall, ‘the world is changing. Senior common room sex is a fact of life. It always was, if the truth be told. It’s just that the past was a different country. Discreet. Unknowable. Everything that went on in bed was swept under it. If you follow.’
‘That’s still true here. But in addition to Lorraine there was this extraordinary business with the Burney girl which I simply can’t fathom. I don’t know if sex has been involved but even someone as apparently broad-minded as you must accept that for a tutor to sleep with one of his students is not just a betrayal of trust, it’s simply asking for trouble. He should never even have looked at her. You know that.’ Cornwall did. He had been tempted but never succumbed. Several of his female students had been eighteen going on thirty-five, bent on mischief and seduction. In the old days one might have got away with it. Besides, many of the cases he’d known about were thoroughly satisfactory all round – reassuring for middle-aged dons and revelatory for teenage girls. Some had even gone on to contract happy marriages. But in these days of feminism and political correctness it was a bad move. A lot of these vampish students were heavily into entrapment.
And then this ridiculous going off into the far blue yonder.’
‘Quite.’ Cornwall certainly wasn’t going to disagree about Ashley’s tiresome vanishing trick.
‘So all-in-all Ashley’s queered his pitch as far as taking over the college is concerned.’
‘Thus opening up the way for Jazz Trethewey?’
Dame Edith rubbed at one of many paint-spots on her grubby smock.
‘You might think so but I’m afraid I have reservations about Professor Trethewey. Difficult to put one’s
finger on it. Several of the governing body think the same. There’s also some pressure to make a male appointment.’
‘But hang on.’ Cornwall was puzzled. ‘If Ashley is really so keen to succeed you then why does he do three things which seem perfectly calculated to prevent him? After all, if he did succeed to the Principal’s position he could indulge his droit de seigneur as much as he wanted and go for unannounced walkabouts whenever he wished.’
‘I wouldn’t bank on that,’ said Dame Edith. ‘There is a long history of sexual abuse by the heads of residential colleges and others in exalted positions. Generally speaking the higher you go the harder you fall.’
Tudor rubbed his jaw. ‘There’s another way of looking at it. Having an affair with Lorraine would mean that she was on-side with the powers-that-be which would help his candidature. Getting involved with Elizabeth Burney could be construed as taking a genuine interest in student welfare. Going off for an unscheduled short leave could be interpreted as an interesting spiritual exercise. Like going into retreat. Contemplation, solitude, space... all rather attractive in a serious academic. Welcome change from committee-fixated academic bureaucrats.’
‘Without letting anyone know?’
‘Spontaneity’s an academic rarity too, but I’m sure Ashley could propound it as a virtue.’ The Dame arched an eyebrow and kicked out vaguely at a cat which was rubbing against her sensible shoe.
‘All right, I’m playing Devil’s advocate,’ he said, ‘but he could have been thinking like that. Especially if you’re right and he is a touch menopausal.’
The Dame seemed doubtful.
‘If you put it like that,’ she said, ‘it does seem faintly plausible, but not for long.’
‘Have you talked to him about all this?’
She looked discomfited, as well, Tudor felt, she might.
‘Not properly. I suppose I’m losing my touch. One reason I want to resign and spend more time on my echidnas. It simply doesn’t seem worth the candle. Confrontation, unpleasantness, raised voices. I’ve reached an age when I feel entitled to a quiet life. I suppose I thought being head of a residential college of the University of Tasmania would provide just the tranquillity I crave. Peaceful old age.’