‘Dearly as we love him, Alan and I agree our godchild can be hell on wheels at times. I admire Nigel and Inga enormously for the way they deal with him. I wouldn’t have the patience. And what poor Inga’s going to do with a new baby in the house, I don’t know. Now, here’s your room. The bathroom’s across the hall, and most of the time it’s all yours. Alan and I will use the little loo off the kitchen. In the middle of the night, though, we probably won’t risk the stairs. At your age, I doubt you’ll ever notice.’
She laughed a little. ‘No, I almost never need to get up in the night.’
‘Oh, for the days when I could say the same! I’ll leave you to get settled now, and supper’s in about fifteen minutes. If you’re not hungry, come down and join us anyway, and we can share a glass of wine, at least.’
I closed the door on her profuse thanks and went down to mash the potatoes while Alan grilled the pork chops and finished the salad. Comfort food. Gillian wasn’t the only one in need of it.
I had set the table in the kitchen, and of course the animals all crowded in, eager to help us clean up anything that might fall to the floor. The cats can be somewhat critical and aloof with strangers, but they liked Gillian immediately. Emmy stropped herself against Gilly’s ankles, and Sam uttered one of her best Siamese yowls, apparently meaning: ‘I’m a wonderful cat. Pay attention to me. Better yet, feed me.’
‘Just shoo them away if they get to be too much,’ I said. ‘I do hope you’re not allergic. I forgot to ask.’
‘No, I love cats. All animals, really,’ she added, sitting down to pat Watson, who was feeling neglected.
So I introduced them, and darling Watson proffered a paw to shake. His former owner taught him that trick, but we were as proud as if we’d done it ourselves.
By the time the food was on the table, Gillian was a part of the family. ‘I’ve missed this,’ she said as I passed her the potatoes. ‘Eating in the kitchen, with cats and dogs around. My parents have a big old farmhouse in Kent, with a huge kitchen where we spent most of our time. Then at Hallam I lived in rooms, and then I moved to the flat here. It’s quite nice, really, but it’s not …’
‘Not home,’ I finished for her. ‘We practically live in this kitchen, too. When it’s chilly outside, the Aga keeps this room blissfully warm.’
‘And insufferably hot in high summer,’ said Alan. ‘Some salad?’
She made a good meal, slipping titbits now and then to whatever animal appeared by her chair. When I offered a dish of blackberry and apple crumble, though, still warm from the oven and smelling heavenly, she shook her head regretfully. ‘I can’t. It’s my favourite, but there’s no room. I shall grow out of all my clothes if you keep feeding me like this.’
‘Don’t worry. I’d turn to a blimp myself on this regime. We usually have something simple in the evening, but I thought this was appropriate for a trying day.’ Trying, I thought to myself. I’m getting almost as good at understatement as the Brits. ‘Tell me what you like to eat, and I’ll provide it in future.’
‘Or let me cook it myself,’ said Gillian. ‘I’m rather a good cook, actually. But I can’t sponge off you forever. I’m sure I’ll be okay at home. It was only … those phone calls … I felt a bit vulnerable.’
‘And so you are.’ Alan tented his fingers in his familiar ‘lecturing’ style. ‘I don’t want to frighten you, child, and I know you cherish your independence, but one member of the staff at your college is dead and another is missing. One of the studios has been viciously ravaged, and you’ve received quite nasty phone calls. Be sensible, Gillian. You’re neither sponging nor imposing. There’s a time to be bold and a time to take precautions. “She who fights and runs away …” you know …’
‘I hate running away!’
‘But I’m sure you’d like to live to fight another day,’ I put in. ‘Don’t forget the rest of the quote: “But he who is in battle slain can never rise and fight again.” Or to use a homelier bit of advice, choose your battles. And to go on to one of them, do you have any idea at all who might have trashed the print studio?’
‘If it were term time, I’d say some disgruntled student. There were some incidents at Hallam while I was there that weren’t very pretty. Art students can be very competitive, you know.’
‘But it isn’t term time, and I’d say there was a lot more damage than could be laid down to artistic temperament.’
‘What actually was done? No one’s told me.’
Alan forestalled me. ‘I think the police will want the details kept quiet for the time being,’ he said.
‘Was anybody’s work damaged?’ she persisted.
‘Yes,’ I said, and had to control a shudder.
‘Gillian, I’m sorry, but we really mustn’t say any more,’ said Alan. ‘All we’re asking is, can you think of anyone who hates Matt Thomas enough to damage his workplace? Or for that matter, anyone who hates the college? It could have been sheer blind malevolence directed against the school of art in general.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re asking the wrong person. I don’t really know anyone except Dennis, who blusters a lot and looks fierce and is an absolute sweetie-pie. For the rest …’ She spread her hands. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help. Oh, but I did write down what I could remember of the phone calls. Shall I run up and get it?’
‘Time enough when you’ve let your dinner settle. Come in and sit by the fire while Alan and I tidy up in here, and then you can tell us about yourself.’
But she insisted on helping, so I let her wash while Alan dried and I put everything away, and we were done in no time. ‘If the art business doesn’t work out,’ I said, ‘I’ll recommend you as a domestic help.’
‘I may take you up on that, if the college doesn’t get its problems settled soon. It isn’t just all the horrible things that have been happening. Even when we get beyond all this, I don’t see how any of us can work with no budget. I don’t understand how the college finances got into such a mess. The Wolfson’s always had an excellent reputation.’
‘Enrolments down, perhaps?’ suggested Alan, shooing us into the parlour.
‘Not that I’ve heard. I know there were several applicants for my position. I’m a student as well as a teacher, you know.’
‘Is this something new?’ asked Alan. ‘I don’t recall any such arrangements when I was at university. That was years ago, of course.’
‘It’s one of the American innovations the late unlamented head introduced. I don’t know where he found the funding, but it’s one of the few good things he did for the place. I suppose Braithwaite will try to change that, too.’
I shook my head. ‘I hope not. It’s a very common practice in America, Alan. We call them grad assistants or teaching assistants, TAs for short. They’re generally viewed as slave labour, with stipends you can hardly find with a microscope.’
‘It’s much the same here. My fees are paid, and I’m given a tiny living allowance, about enough to support Emmy, here, if she went on a diet. Oof!’ Emmy, all seventeen pounds of her, had landed in Gilly’s lap. ‘That diet might not be a bad idea, come to think of it,’ she said, stroking the big grey cat’s soft fur. ‘Is she a British Blue?’
‘Half. The other half was just plain tabby, but she looks exactly like her father. I’m sure you’ve met him, the Blue Max at the Rose and Crown. His children, like Abraham’s, number as the stars. Sam is another one, though she’s taken after her mother and stayed slim. Dump Emmy if she’s too much of a nuisance.’
‘Never! I’m well up on cat etiquette.’
‘So Gilly, are you able to survive on your pittance? Are you thinking of taking another job?’ I was trying to think of a subtle way to offer some aid.
‘I couldn’t manage without my parents’ help. They insisted, but I hate to take it. I’m twenty-six. It’s time I was supporting myself.’
‘How, if I may ask without offence, did a very attractive young woman like yourself remain single for so long?’ asked Alan in h
is most gallant manner.
‘I’ve never had time for anything but art. Oh, there’ve been episodes. One chap at Hallam was really serious, but he was all about settling down and raising lots of kids and going to the seaside every summer for a holiday, with maybe an occasional daring jaunt to France. I just don’t want that kind of life. I want to make beautiful bronzes and sell them all over the world. I want to travel and get ideas and then come home and make more beauty. If I ever meet a man who wants to share that sort of life, then I’ll think about marriage. Right now the occasional dinner out, or a play in London, is all the amusement I’m interested in, and even then, if my work is going well, I don’t want to leave it.’
‘Well, then, we’d best see to the untangling of the mess at the college so you can get on with it,’ said Alan cheerfully. ‘For a start, might I see the notes you made for me?’
‘They don’t make pretty reading. Sorry, Emmy,’ Gillian said as she picked the cat up and put her gently on the floor. Emmy growled and stalked away, high dudgeon written in every line of her body.
When she came back she also brought her new phone, a tiny flip-top that obviously amused her. ‘The latest model. Want to know what it does, Dorothy?’
‘I give up.’
‘It makes phone calls! And receives them, as well. Imagine, a real live telephone you can put in your pocket. I want you to have the number, both of you, and I’m counting you as one of the two I’m allowed. Inga and Nigel combine as the other. Here’s the number, if you want to program it into your phones.’ She passed us a small piece of paper.
‘But with no name on it, remember, love,’ Alan put in, unnecessarily, I thought. I do know the rudiments of modern communication.
‘It won’t take it without a name. “Friend” would be too obvious to anyone who stole my phone. So would “anonymous”. I know, though. I’ll put in Phyllis Loving. I once had a cousin with that name, so it’s real, but she’s long dead. She would have enjoyed standing in for you, Gilly.’
‘And I’ll choose a man’s name. John Doe?’
‘Talk about obvious!’
But Alan smiled. ‘Jack, then. Jack … Roebuck. Close enough.’ He punched the appropriate buttons and then began to read Gillian’s notes, and grimaced as he read. ‘Do you want to see, love? It’s vile.’
‘Gilly had to hear it, poor dear, and then remember it and write it down. I can bear to read it.’
Shorn of obscenities, which constituted the greater part of each message, the content comprised two themes: activities the caller planned to indulge in with Gillian, and what might happen if she refused. The latter concentrated on her position at the college. ‘Can you afford to lose that?’ was one often repeated threat, though larded in the original with expletives.
I handed the paper back to Alan with the feeling that I needed a bath.
‘This is verbatim?’ he asked.
‘I wouldn’t swear to it. I tried not to listen. It’s as much as I remember.’
‘And it was a noble effort! And I think we need something to wash the taste out. What’s your tipple, Gilly?’
We settled down with drinks, and Emmy relented sufficiently to jump back into Gilly’s lap, and we spent the rest of the evening talking of nothing in particular. But even a fairly stiff bourbon couldn’t dim the horrors of the day sufficiently. As I’d predicted, I had nightmares. I woke in the night sweating, with my heart pounding, but I couldn’t remember what had been so terrifying.
FIFTEEN
Monday, September 8
I’d remembered, before I went to bed, to ask Gillian when she needed to be up in the morning. In the blissful state of retirement, one sometimes forgets that the rest of the world is up and about at dawn or thereabouts. The sun had been up for half an hour or so when I stumbled out of bed, or so my sunrise/sunset chart said. You couldn’t prove it in Sherebury. At seven o’clock the sun was obscured by thick clouds, and the air was full of the same sort of nasty wetness as the day before.
Watson went out, accomplished his mission, and hurried back in again, paws wet and muddy. The cats didn’t even attempt it. Sam put her nose out the cat flap, backed into the room with some Siamese profanity, and demanded breakfast in atonement for the weather I had plainly created to annoy cats.
‘It isn’t my fault, Sam, and I can’t do a thing about it!’
She stalked to her dish and swore again to find it empty.
I fed the animals, made a big pot of coffee, and then put the kettle on, remembering that Gilly didn’t drink coffee. I had eggs and bacon at the ready, though Alan and I seldom had them for breakfast anymore, and got out several varieties of cereal from the cupboard. Bread for toasting, and butter, and marmalade – there, that should do it. I went to the stairs, heard the shower running, and sat down with a cup of coffee and the Telegraph.
When she came down a few minutes later, Gillian was as fresh and perky as any young woman should be on her first day in a new venture. Ah, the resilience of youth!
‘I didn’t know what you usually eat, so there’s a bit of everything at hand.’
‘You didn’t have to do this, you know. I usually get a chai and a bite of something at Starbucks on my way.’
‘A waste of your tiny stipend. Toast? Cereal? Something more substantial?’
‘Wholegrain toast would be lovely, thank you, but let me make it.’
‘Splendid, and put some in for me, too. Indian tea, or China?’
We were sipping and munching happily when Alan came down, looking only a little rumpled without his usual morning shower. ‘What’s on the agenda for today, my dear?’
It could have been addressed to either of us, but his smile was for Gillian.
‘Administrative stuff, mostly, getting class rosters and schedules sorted out. Then I’m to teach one class in elementary figure modelling, if we have the model and the clay to work with, and then meet with Dennis to map out my work for this term. My own work, I mean.’ Some of the light went out of her eyes. ‘Whatever that turns out to be.’
She insisted on cycling to the college. ‘The weather’s no worse than yesterday, and I’ve perfectly good rain gear. I won’t have you turning yourselves into my chauffeurs!’ Stuffing what she needed for the day into her backpack, she blew us a kiss and spun off down the wet street.
‘And what about your agenda for the day?’ I asked when we sat back down over fresh cups of coffee.
‘Go have a chat with Derek and his henchmen. I’d like to get up to speed on various details like their success in tracing Chandler’s movements at the end of last term, and learn what they made of the vandalism.’
‘Obviously they didn’t find Matt’s body in that mess anywhere, or Derek would have told you. What else do you think might have turned up?’
‘God only knows. I’d love to learn that there was something to incriminate Mr W.T. Braithwaite, but I’m not expecting it. I also want to check with Guy and see what they were able to learn from Gilly’s phone. What about you?’
‘The first thing is some grocery shopping. If I’m to be catering for a young woman with a healthy appetite, as well as us two old fogeys, I need a lot more food in the house. That means I’ll need the car, though. Shall I do the shopping first, or wait till you come home?’
‘I can walk. The station’s just the other side of the close, and the rain’s not as bad as it was. So go when you like. And after that?’
‘Then I’ve had a brilliant idea. At least, I think it’s brilliant.’
I paused expectantly. Alan did not disappoint me. ‘And what might that be, delight of my heart?’
‘Good heavens, what have you been reading? Victorian novels? Persian love poetry? Never mind, I don’t think I want to know. Anyway, I’m going to call Penny Brannigan and see if she knows anything about any of these people. She’s an artist; they’re artists. She might have heard some dirt that even Jane doesn’t know.’
‘Not bad,’ said Alan. ‘But she’s an amateur, and a Canadian ex-pa
t living in Wales. Do you really think she’d know any of the college people?’
‘Wales is not all that far away. Nothing is all that far away in these scepter’d isles, not for people like Penny and me who’re used to vast North American spaces. I bet she’ll know somebody who knows somebody. Anyway, it’s worth a try.’
‘I’ll give it three stars out of four on the brilliance scale,’ said Alan, and left the room rapidly.
Well, I still thought it was a good idea. Alan just doesn’t realize how small a world Britain is, and how interconnected groups of people are. I’m willing to bet that, for example, every person involved in theatre in the United Kingdom is connected to everybody else in that particular profession, at least at second or third remove. ‘Oh, yes, my cousin’s best friend was the set designer for that production. Eight or nine years ago it was, in Bath.’ That sort of thing. And not just professionals, either. Somebody else’s cousin helped every year with the Such-and-Such school production of Shakespeare, and So-and-So has seen every play Whosis was ever in.
And the same would be true of the art world, I was sure. So as soon as I’d cleared away breakfast, I picked up my phone and looked up Penny’s number.
The call went to voicemail. That was disappointing, though I shouldn’t have been surprised. Between the spa she runs and her painting, and a good many other activities in the charming Welsh village where she lives, she’s a busy lady. I left a brief message just saying I had some art-related questions, and would she call me back.
Well. Here I’d been hoping to talk to her and get some ideas of a new direction for this frustrating inquiry. Never mind. She’d call back eventually, and meanwhile there was that shopping to do. I wrote out a list, made sure I had my carrier bags, and set out.
For a town of its size, Sherebury is remarkably well-supplied with shops. For clothing, we have, as well as the boutiques, a small Marks and Spencer in the High Street. Nearby, for food, is a small Sainsbury’s, and in the new shopping centre at the edge of town there’s a fine big Tesco. Now, in principle, I disapprove of supermarkets in England. They seem very un-English to me, another American invasion. They are, however, extremely convenient. I can get most of what I need at Sainsbury’s, which is within easy walking distance of my home. I even have a little wheeled cart for bringing home my purchases if they’re too bulky to carry. But for major shopping expeditions, or in bad weather, it’s Tesco. I got the car, bundled Watson in, and took off through increasingly hard rain.
The Gentle Art of Murder Page 11