The Bursar's Wife

by E. G. Rodford

  “Just with you, not for Brampton?”

  “Look, I’m just as anxious to get to the bottom of this as you are. Brampton isn’t the only one with a career. If she goes down for something she may have done I go down, unless I can come up with something.”

  I studied her for a few seconds and stood up. “You know what, Stubbing, you’re in for a special treat.”

  She stood up and pushed her rucked jeans down her skinny legs. “Maybe you should start calling me Vicky.”

  “I’m not quite there yet,” I said, and she grinned.

  In the dining room Stubbing looked at the chessboard laid out on the other end of the table.

  “Who do you play chess with?”

  I moved the mouse and the computer came to life. “I don’t. It’s a chess problem.”

  “You mean you play on your own?”

  “Yes. Come and look.” The photos of Trisha Greene appeared, little thumbnails that filled the screen, and she joined me. We hunched over, our heads together, and I caught that sour smell again.

  “It’s a seedy job you’ve got, Kocky,” she said, as I scrolled through the pictures.

  I shrugged, bringing up the pictures of Quintin’s driver and Trisha Greene, walking off together, then her coming back alone. “You know who that is, right?”

  She nodded. “Mark Stillgoe, Quintin’s occasional driver.” She stood up and folded her arms, staring down at the screen. I picked up the sheets from the printer, one listing the postcodes Trisha had been to in her car, the other a map showing the same. I stared at the map. Had Jason sent me the wrong one? This looked like Quintin Boyd’s map: his road was flagged on it, but Trisha’s name was clearly marked at the top. I checked the list; again, Trisha Greene’s name was at the top. From the map I looked at the River Views postcode and scanned the list of postcodes on the other sheet for it. It appeared. She had been there a week before she died.

  Stubbing was going through the rest of the photos, pulling them up one by one and moaning about my slow computer. I shoved the printout under her nose.

  42

  OVER PEPPERONI PIZZA AND BEER AT THE KITCHEN TABLE Stubbing and I talked. If I’d been worried that she’d rush off to Brampton with the news that the murdered woman had known her university buddy – or at the very least parked on his street – I had no need. It was becoming apparent to me that Stubbing, or Vicky as she wanted me to call her, was no fool. I brought her completely up to date, telling her about my run-in with Quintin’s knife man, my discovery of his DVDs and my confrontation with the man himself last night, ending with the fact that he was making his own movies. I didn’t tell her about the nature of the warning he’d made against me or that he was probably Lucy Booker’s father or that there existed a sex tape of Sylvia in Quintin’s apartment; that was between me and Sylvia.

  “Sounds like he used a date-rape drug on you. You sure he didn’t put you in one of his films?”

  “My arse isn’t sore, if that’s what you mean. But maybe he uses it on the women who come to his place, I mean the ones he doesn’t pay or who aren’t willing.”

  “Some people take it recreationally in smaller doses. Maybe that’s how they get in the mood to be filmed. Maybe he even filmed Trisha Greene, in which case that’s something to take to Brampton that she can’t ignore.”

  “Or make disappear,” I said. I leaned back and pulled out another couple of beers from the fridge.

  “The thing is that even if I was in a position to try and get a warrant to enter his place, I’ve got very little to go on. That’s why it would be good to get hold of actual footage. Your photos tie the driver to Trisha and the GPS data shows she parked on Quintin’s street for a couple of hours a week before she was killed. It’s not enough. If we could show she was there on the night, for instance.”

  “Unfortunately I took the tracker off before then.”

  I got up and went into the hall, rummaged in my coat pocket and pulled out the crushed box of condoms, the DVD that I’d picked up from Jason when I dropped Lucy off and the keys to Quintin’s penthouse. I put the condoms and DVD on the hall table next to the phone. In the kitchen I tossed the keys onto the table in front of Stubbing. She picked them up.

  “What are these?”

  “The keys to Quintin Boyd’s apartment. And,” I added, before she could ask where I got them, “I happen to know that he’ll be out tonight.” I looked at the clock on the wall. “In about an hour in fact.”

  She sat back in her chair and shook her head. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

  “I’m asking you to accompany me when I go to someone’s house to pick up a DVD he was going to lend me. That’s all. I’m not going to break in; I have the keys.” I didn’t mention that I also wanted to pick up the tape of Sylvia.

  She looked at the keys, unconvinced.

  “You wouldn’t want me to get drugged again, would you? It could be worse this time if I’m caught,” I said, thinking of the photo I’d woken up with.

  “If I was caught in his flat my so-called career would be buggered, never mind you. I’m already off Brampton’s copper-of-the-month shortlist.”

  “Does Quintin know what you look like?”

  “I don’t think so, but—”

  “So even if he were to turn up—”

  “Save your breath, George. Listen, most I’ll do is wait outside the residence while you pick up the aforementioned DVD from the apartment whose owner gave you his keys with the express intent that you could enter his premises.”

  I sat down. It was the most I was going to get out of her, but it would be good to know that she would be watching my backside while I was inside.

  “OK, we’ve got an hour to kill. Do you want another beer?”

  She shook her head and leant forward, giving me a blast of pizza and beer. “Why don’t we watch that DVD you got hold of from his apartment?”

  I shrugged. I’d planned to watch it but it wasn’t an experience I wanted to share with Stubbing of all people.

  “It’s just professional, Kocky, to see if there’s anything on it we can use against Quintin Boyd.”

  * * *

  For all his pontificating about the artistic merit of 1970s porn, Boyd’s own efforts were laughable. Jason was right; it obviously wasn’t a finished piece, more a series of scenes taken from one camera. The woman who’d been dropped off by Quintin Boyd’s driver and who I’d spoken to outside her house was the star of the show. I was embarrassed to be watching this sat next to Stubbing, professional or not, and my embarrassment grew when a man’s arm came into shot and started to pull her dress up. She protested but her heart wasn’t in it. I glanced at Stubbing beside me who was leaning forward, intent on the small screen. I tried to study the setting where it was happening.

  “Is that in his apartment?” I wondered aloud, my voice at odds with the over-the-top moaning coming from the screen. It was in a room I didn’t recognise. In the middle was a small bed, more like a massage table, on which the now naked woman lay back on, and I had to endure her use of a variety of weird-looking sex toys, culminating in the use of two at once. All the while she was pretending she didn’t want to do it, looking behind the camera and pleading with whoever was there to stop filming, but Quintin’s voice was heard telling her to do what she was told. None of it was going to win any Oscars, not even those obscure ones nobody cares about except the recipient.

  “She’s definitely a pro – over the hill mind – but a pro,” Stubbing said, and I gave her a questioning look.

  “I’ve had to watch lots of this stuff.”

  “How about a cup of tea,” I said, getting up and moving to the door – I just wanted to be out of the room.

  “He’s definitely not a pro,” I heard her shout as I filled the kettle. “He must have lighting set up in the room, and he’s using a high definition camera.”

  I put on the kettle but Stubbing kept up her loud commentary.

  “She’s good, it takes practice to do that wi
thout gagging. But the two blokes are amateurs.”

  In the kitchen, I tried to drown out the sounds of the film by washing two mugs up. By the time I’d poured hot water over teabags it had gone quiet.

  “Too hardcore for you was it?” Stubbing said from the kitchen door. “Believe me, that was pretty tame.” I turned to see her leaning against the frame, arms folded, grinning.

  “Well? Did you learn anything?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “She wasn’t drugged, she seemed willing enough; there was no coercion, not on film anyway, even though she’s pretending she’s being forced into it. There’s nothing disturbing or unusual about it, it’s not like it’s kiddie porn. The only thing that’s odd is who’s made it. You don’t generally find someone of Quintin Boyd’s type making porn – it’s not like he needs the money and it’s pretty lame stuff compared to what’s out there. Also, it’s unedited. It’s all one take. He’s even in shot using a small camcorder for close-ups.”

  “I’m told the big camera records straight to DVD, so it’s just the raw footage.”

  “That makes sense, he probably edits it together with the stuff from the small camera on a computer.”

  I glanced at the clock. “We’ve still forty-five minutes to kill. Do you want some tea?” I held up a steaming mug.

  “No thanks.” Her expression changed into something I’d not seen before and she said, matter-of-factly, “Do you want to have sex?” She held eye contact, and I looked in vain for signs of sneering or mocking.

  “OK.” I put the mugs in the sink.

  “You’ve got a condom, I assume?” she asked.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.”

  43

  STUBBING AND I SAT IN MY GOLF IN THE CAR PARK OPPOSITE River Views. A fine drizzle meant that I had to occasionally flick on the wipers to look up at the penthouse apartment and see if the lights had gone out. Stubbing was drumming her fingers on the dash – she had no fingernails to speak of.

  “I see your windows don’t steam up. The old taxi driver’s washing-up liquid trick?” she asked.

  “You pick these things up if you’ve sat in a car long enough,” I said.

  She nodded. “I tell you something. Pissing in a car is easier for men.” She took out a small pot of Vaseline and applied some to her thin lips using her little finger. Part of me was now regretting that we’d had sex. Part of me was extremely glad we had. However, if I’d expected cuddles and pillow talk afterwards I was a bigger fool than I already knew I was.

  “That was a one-off, Kocky, it doesn’t mean I’m giving you my phone number or that we’re going to the cinema together,” she’d said, pulling on her once-white underwear and faded jeans over her stubbly long-distance-runner’s legs – we hadn’t made the time to get her jumper off, never mind her bra, and she hadn’t even made eye contact during the short time she’d frantically ground her hips against mine, testing the condom to near destruction. Seconds after, we were finished, and I was lying on the bed, my trousers and pants round my ankles, making sure the condom had held up to the rigours of Stubbing’s furious fornication. Indeed I half wondered whether I should provide a testimonial to the manufacturer.

  “I know it was a bit, erm, hasty, but in my defence it has been six months,” I said. “Maybe next time we can—”

  “I’ve just told you there won’t be a next time. It was a one-off thing that we both needed. Now lets go to Quintin’s.”

  Stubbing hadn’t bothered to wash after sex and in the enclosed stuffiness of the Golf her stale sweat and the smell of sex combined in a heady mix that made me wish that I could crack open the window. But I didn’t want to be obvious and besides, it was cold outside and had started to rain.

  “How will you know which DVD to pick up? You can’t bring the whole lot out,” she asked.

  “I’ve thought about that,” I said, taking the DVD we’d watched from my pocket. “There’s a serial number on this – there’s one on all of them – so there must be a book or something that references them. If I can find that then maybe it will point me in the right direction.”

  She turned to look at me for the first time since we’d got in the car and I had trouble believing that just thirty minutes ago she’d been riding me with wild abandon.

  “Your plan is flawed,” she said. “One, if there is such a list it will most likely be computerised. Two…” She stopped and stared at the DVD in my hand. “Hang on a minute,” she said, looking back at me, “you know from your GPS tracker the date Trisha was parked here, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Then all you need to do is pull out the DVD with that date on it.” She grinned in what I took to be a patronising manner since I hadn’t a clue what she was on about.

  “What?”

  “That’s not a serial number, George, it’s a date.”

  I looked at the number. True, it was six digits, the last two ending in what could be a year, but the middle two numbers were twenty-three, and the first two eleven. Just how stupid was she?

  I gently pointed this out.

  “You’re being thick, Kocky. He’s an American, you fool.”

  “So?”

  She stared at me until a light bulb went on in my head.

  “Of course, they swap the day and month.”

  “There you go.”

  I looked at the date on the DVD. It corresponded with the date I’d seen the woman in the film leave his place.

  “Now, do you remember the date Trisha was here?” Stubbing asked.

  “Mmm, lets see, I could work it out…”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s a good job I can remember it, isn’t it?”

  I was spared the need to answer by the silver Merc pulling up outside River Views. I flicked the wipers on and off. Mark the driver spoke into his earpiece as the car idled and proceeded to check himself in the rear-view mirror.

  “There’s our man,” said Stubbing. She wrote down the date I was looking for and wished me luck.

  “Have you got a mobile on you?” I asked.

  She looked at me suspiciously.

  “Jesus, woman, it’s just so you can ring me in case they come back.”

  “OK. Give me your number.”

  “I don’t know the number,” I said. And when she gave me another look I told her it was the office mobile and I never rang it.

  “Give it to me,” she said. I handed her the phone and she fiddled with it then keyed a number into her phone – one that looked more ancient than mine.

  The lights went off in the penthouse and a few minutes later Quintin emerged from the gate of the apartments. Mark sprang out of the car and opened the rear door of the Merc. I spotted a bow tie under Quintin’s coat. Mark did a three-pointer, pulling briefly into the car park entrance requiring us to duck our heads to escape the headlights. Our heads touched beneath the dash and oddly enough it was a more intimate moment than the one we’d had on my bed earlier. When the lights had gone we sat back up, but not before I’d noticed the build-up of wax in Stubbing’s ear. A pizza delivery scooter pulled up outside the gates. I saw my chance; it would save me pressing all the buzzers on the off-chance someone would let me in with the old ‘it’s me’ trick.

  “OK then, I’m going,” I said. “I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.”

  She nodded. I got out into the rain and walked over to the gates as the helmeted teenager pressed a bell on the panel. I hoped Eric the concierge (if he was on duty) didn’t come out of his room. I put my mac over my head to protect myself from the rain and the CCTV camera. The gate buzzed as I reached it and I went through behind the pizza boy, following the lovely smell. A smell that promised more than it delivered – like Chanel No.5 on a woman who turns out to be wearing polyester underwear, or indeed a man in an Armani suit who buys his underwear in packs of five from the supermarket. At least when it came to Stubbing, what you saw is what you got.

  44

  IT WAS DARK INSIDE QUINTIN’S APARTMENT BUT THIS TIME I knew
my way around. After dropping my wet raincoat over the back of a dining chair I went straight through the archway and down the hall to the office at the end, passing the bedroom and the door that was locked last time. The office was lit only by the computer screen. The computer, which was humming, hadn’t yet put the screen to sleep; presumably because Quintin had been using it just before he left. I approached the desk and studied the screen more closely than I had last time. The computer was an Apple Mac, so I understood even less what I was looking at than usual. Some programme was running, a completion bar was nearly complete. I gave up, deciding I would look more closely when I had got what I came for, and went to the oak cabinet.

  I opened the right-hand drawer and located the empty sleeve I’d left behind, slipping the DVD I’d borrowed back in the correct place. I flicked through the rest; it seemed they were arranged by date going back several years, the most frequent one being last week. This wasn’t a recently acquired hobby, it was something he’d been developing for some time. I moved forward through the discs until I found the only one with a date that coincided with Trisha Greene’s visit.

  Then I had a brainwave, the sort that hits you every now and then and makes you feel more intelligent than you really are. I looked for DVDs with the date of the night of Trisha’s death. Yes, there was one. I put both DVDs in my jacket pocket.

  I closed the drawer and was about to open the left-hand drawer with the VHS tapes in when the room went dark – the screen on the desk, which had been providing all the light in the room, had gone black. I went to the desk and jogged the mouse and got the dialogue box asking for a password. Now I felt stupid for not having a closer look when I’d had the chance. Then I heard a key in the front door and froze. I heard the front door close. Why hadn’t Stubbing rung me?

  It was quiet and no lights came on. What was he doing? Perhaps he’d forgotten something and gone to the bathroom. Shit: I’d left my raincoat over the back of a dining chair. I didn’t understand why it was so quiet; the whole place was wood-floored so you would hear someone walking down the hall. I decided he must have gone to the loo so it was a good time to sneak out – in which case I’d have to forget about Sylvia’s tape – or I could wait it out and hope he left without noticing my coat. I looked out into the dark hall and the last thing I saw before understanding why Stubbing hadn’t called was a gold coin mounted in a claw heading for my eyes.