Some might call them a quirky twosome, and to be honest they probably were. Even before the boys were born, she didn’t have a movie star figure, but in his eyes she was gorgeous and he longed to get her into bed. That had had to wait until the wedding night, however; nothing modern about Miss Juliet Bader. Not that she was prim – her humour was too rough-edged for anyone to think that of her – but she had made a promise to her mother and to herself that she would wait. And if a man wanted her enough, he would have to wait, too. Well, Jim Vanderberg thought, she had been well worth the waiting. And they had a lifetime of loving ahead of them.
Please, God.
By mid-morning it was clear Henry was flagging, so Vanderberg took him back to the hotel for bacon and eggs in the lounge. While the boy was feasting himself, Vanderberg and Tripp ordered coffee.
‘It doesn’t make sense, boss, you know that.’
‘Torpedoing innocent civilians? It sure doesn’t make sense.’
‘I mean it doesn’t make sense the Germans doing it. Why would they attack a ship with Americans aboard? The Nazis might take a hard line, but are they really that dumb? Goddammit, sir, the sinking of the Lusitania in the last war didn’t help the German cause any.’
‘What are you trying to say, Tripp?’
‘I’m saying, sir, that maybe it wasn’t a German U-boat that sank the Athenia. Maybe someone put a bomb on board. Or a mine – maybe it hit a British mine. That’s what the Germans are saying.’
‘Why would the British place a mine two hundred miles out in the Atlantic? Anyway, Tripp, you heard Henry. He saw the torpedo – and he saw the sub.’
‘OK then, not a bomb or mine, a torpedo. But maybe the sub that fired it wasn’t German. Who stands to gain from sinking the Athenia, sir? That’s what we should be asking ourselves.’
*
Lydia called Addenbrooke’s. She needed to know what had happened to Marfield during his session with Dr Charlecote. The main switchboard put her through to the psychiatrist’s secretary.
‘Can I speak to the doctor, please?’
A slight pause on the other end of the line, then Miss Hollick’s crisp voice. ‘Are you one of his patients, madam?’
‘I’m a friend.’
Another pause. ‘It’s Miss Morris, isn’t it? The lady who brought that young man in yesterday.’
‘Yes. I want to talk to the doctor,’ Lydia said, failing to contain her irritability.
‘Does that mean you haven’t heard, madam?’
‘Heard what?’
‘Dr Charlecote’s body was found early this morning up on the Gogs.’ Miss Hollick sounded close to tears. ‘The police say he shot himself.’
*
Wilde removed the tarpaulin cover from the Rudge Special, checked the oil and gave the chrome a quick polish with his sleeve, before riding her to college. It was a 500cc racer that could do a hundred miles per hour if pushed, but this was one of his more sedate trips.
He parked at the gate and wandered into the porters’ lodge and sought out Scobie.
‘Did Marfield arrive yesterday evening?’
‘Indeed he did, sir, and I showed him to his new rooms myself. He’s on your staircase for the time being – Dr Birbach’s old set.’
‘Ah.’ Wilde wasn’t sure what difference it made, but he somehow felt uncomfortable at the thought of Marfield being quite so close to him. And poor Birbach’s rooms? He doubted Marfield was superstitious. If he was haunted, it would be by what he had seen in Spain, not by the ghost of a deceased German scientist.
‘The young gentleman went out not more than five minutes ago. You might have passed him.’
‘Do you know which way he was headed?’
‘Northwards, towards the Senate House.’
‘You know, I think I might go after him.’ Neither he nor Lydia had seen Marfield after the appointment at Addenbrooke’s yesterday. ‘Look out for my motorbike, would you.’
‘Of course, sir.’
Earlier, he had told Lydia about Claire Marfield. She was as surprised as Wilde to discover Marcus was married. She had been less surprised to hear what Timothy Laker, the Director of Music, had revealed about him.
What most interested them both now was what had gone on in the psychiatrist’s room. ‘The rules of privacy relate to the couch, just as much as the confessional,’ Wilde had said. ‘We have no right to pester him. Whatever mess he has made of his life is his own responsibility.’ But that didn’t mean they weren’t curious – particularly in Marfield’s marriage and the birth of his child. He must have realised the child had been born – it was odd that he never seemed to have shown the slightest interest in his offspring.
Hurrying along Trumpington Street, Wilde was sure he spotted Marfield a couple of hundred yards ahead, turning right into Saint Mary’s Passage towards the market place. He followed, keeping his distance, interested to discover where he was going.
Ahead of him, Marfield stopped outside the Samovar tea shop on the far side of the square, to the right of the Guildhall close to the corner of Petty Cury. It looked warm and inviting with bicycles parked outside. Marfield looked around, then ducked in through the low doorway.
Wilde waited a couple of minutes, then approached on the far side of the road, casually glancing in through the front window. There were a dozen tables, half of them occupied. Marfield was sitting with a fair-haired woman and they were talking. She had her back to him, but Wilde recognised her. He walked on, and waited, then walked back past the window. Marfield and the woman had disappeared.
*
Lydia put the phone down, desperate to find Wilde. What on earth had happened to make Dr Eric Charlecote commit suicide? Surely it could have had nothing to do with his hypnosis session with Marcus Marfield? She shook herself: Get a grip on yourself, woman.
She and Tom had slept together last night in her bed in her house. At last, it felt like home again. His lovemaking was beautiful and tender. Had he guessed? Surely not. Not yet.
She walked into town. A constable on his beat stopped her. ‘Where’s your gas mask, miss?’
‘I’m just off to the distribution centre to collect a new one,’ she lied.
‘What happened to the other one?’
‘We’ve just been to France on holiday, and of course we took them. Somehow mine got mislaid in the rush to get home.’
He looked at her with a disbelieving eye. ‘Well, all right then. But go straight there. I don’t want to see you without one again.’
She thanked him and carried on her way to the college. Wilde wasn’t there, but she left a message for him in the porters’ lodge. ‘Something awful has happened, Tom. Dr Charlecote has died. I’m going to my office. Join me there. Please. We need to talk.’
*
After fifteen minutes, Marfield appeared at the Samovar door. He looked both ways again and Wilde shrank back into a shoe shop doorway to avoid being seen. He watched as Marfield disappeared across the market square back in the general direction of Great St Mary’s. When he was no longer in sight, Wilde entered the tea shop. He glanced around as though looking for a seat, then plumped himself down opposite the young fair-haired woman. ‘Mind if I sit here? Is it taken.’
The woman was sipping her coffee. She looked up and smiled in recognition. ‘Professor Wilde!’
‘Hello, Miss Kossoff.’ He had been right: it was her.
‘Miss Kossoff? What is this? Am I no longer Elina to you?’
‘How are you?’
‘I am well, but business is not so good. Who wants to sit reading the paper with tea or coffee when there is a war to be fought?’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll be as busy as ever. Of course you will – you have the best coffee in Cambridge.’
‘It won’t be easy to come by if British ships continue to be sunk.’
Wilde had ventured to this cafe and tea shop almost every week since he arrived in Cambridge. With other places, you never knew what you were getting. But here you had a fine choi
ce of superb coffees from around the world – Kenya, Java, Jamaica and several others. They had a remarkable selection of teas, too, not that it was usually Wilde’s first choice of beverage. The Samovar was run by Elina and her parents, but it was Elina whose company he enjoyed most. It wasn’t flirting exactly but there was certainly a spark of warmth between them.
Elina clicked her fingers and the waitress approached. ‘Fetch Mr Wilde whatever he wants – on the house.’
‘No, no, I’ll pay.’
‘Nonsense. But tell me, how was France?’
‘Very pleasant – and I couldn’t help noticing that you have been consorting with the souvenir we brought back.’
‘You mean Marcus?’
‘I didn’t know you were friends.’
Her eyes creased into a smile full of mischief. ‘Well, Professor, there are many things you don’t know about me, and I think I shall keep it that way.’
‘I’m serious. I’m worried about him, Elina. You know he’s been off to that bloody war in Spain? Well, I think he’s brought back a bad case of shell shock, or whatever they call it these days.’
‘So you are not here by chance? You are spying on him!’ She laughed. ‘Well, if you want to know what he talked about with me, it was the war. This war, not the Spanish one. He said he was planning to join up and do his bit for King and country. I think he wanted to show off and hopefully get a bit of, you know, sympathy. No chance though, Mr Wilde, even for one as pretty as Marcus. I’m not that kind of girl.’
Really? Wilde had always surmised that she was exactly that sort of girl.
The waitress arrived with his coffee and Elina Kossoff rose from her seat. She leant over and kissed Wilde’s cheek. ‘Enjoy your coffee, professor. I’m afraid I have to dash.’ And she was out the door and gone.
CHAPTER 15
Wilde found Lydia in her office. She almost ran to the door to greet him and he took her in his arms. This wasn’t like her. One moment she was tired out, the next minute emotional. What was going on? Before he could tell her about Elina Kossoff, she was blurting out what she knew about Dr Charlecote.
‘Wait,’ Wilde said. ‘Slow down.’
‘He’s shot himself.’
‘My God! Who told you this?’
‘His secretary at Addenbrooke’s. She’s in an awful state. I had called to speak to him . . . oh, Tom, this is dreadful. Everything’s disintegrating.’
‘Did you talk to her?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think she knew much. But there was one other thing – she said he did it up on the Gogs and that’s where they found the body. Can you imagine that, Tom?’
Wilde brushed the tears from her cheek. He had never met Eric Charlecote, but he knew of his reputation and couldn’t imagine what might have driven such a distinguished man to such a desperate act.
Was there something more to it? He thought of Colonel Marfield. Two men had shot themselves in the space of two days. No connection between them, save that they both knew Marcus Marfield. Coincidence, surely.
‘I’m sorry, Lydia. Perhaps it’s the war. A lot of people can’t cope. Perhaps memories of the last one flooded back.’
‘I hate it, Tom. I hate war. I hate what it’s done to Marcus Marfield and what it will do to thousands of other young men.’
‘Dr Charlecote might have had just those thoughts.’
‘But he was a psychiatrist! He specialised in trauma! Why did he do it? Someone must know. We have friends at Addenbrooke’s.’
Wilde, too, would like to know what had happened. ‘I’ll talk to Rupert Weir. I think suicides require a post-mortem so he’ll have been notified by now. Meanwhile, why don’t you visit Charlecote’s secretary – see if she knows any more?’
*
Wilde called Adenbrooke’s and was told Dr Weir was on the new golf course at Girton. He wasn’t expected in today but he was on call via the clubhouse.
Collecting the Rudge from college, Wilde rode out there and found Weir on the eighteenth hole, just about to take his tee shot. Wilde hung back, out of sight, until Weir and his two partners had made their shots, then approached them. The doctor’s broad face broke into a smile of pleasure on seeing Wilde.
‘Tom, you’re home!’
‘Glad to be back.’ Wilde shook his hand and then apologised to the other two men for interrupting their game. They didn’t seem perturbed.
Weir, as always, stood out. He was wearing tweeds with waistcoat and a knitted tie and he dwarfed his two companions, both in height and girth. ‘Walk with us, Tom,’ he said. ‘Good to see you – how are you finding unmarried life?’
‘Much the same as before.’
Weir turned to his companions. ‘This man was supposed to be getting married a month ago, but he was stood up by the girl – and then he went on honeymoon with her anyway. Some old farts might think it scandalous and purse their lips disapprovingly, but I call that style.’
‘You are so understanding, Rupert.’
‘Well, of course, I know the girl, don’t I? You were quite right not to let her get away so easily. And your failure to marry, well I suppose that is in the revolutionary tradition of Engels and Mary Burns. Bit of a bohemian and a socialist, your beautiful girl . . .’
‘You have her summed up perfectly, but I don’t see myself as an Engels.’
‘No, nor me. Anyway, Tom, why are you here? Not taking up golf, are you?’
‘Not old enough yet. You have to be eighty, I believe. No, there’s something I want to talk to you about. Play this hole and I’ll buy you a drink.’
*
In the bar, they ordered coffee with whisky chasers and sat at a distance from Weir’s golfing friends. Weir did not seem his usual ebullient self. ‘I have to say, Tom, this day did not begin well. A friend of mine died this morning.’
‘You’re not by any chance talking about Dr Charlecote are you, Rupert?’
‘You’ve heard, eh? Ah, God, what an awful bloody waste. I got a call at home from the police a couple of hours ago. It shocked me to the core, Tom.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘To tell the truth, I still don’t believe it. Never thought of Eric as the sort of man to top himself. Still don’t.’
Weir was both a GP and police surgeon, the man called on by the constabulary for any number of reasons, from judging the intoxication of a drunk driver to examining corpses in the case of sudden or unexplained deaths.
‘Will you be performing a post-mortem?’
‘No, not me. I can’t do it with friends. Played too many rounds with Eric, had too many fine drinks and dinners with him. When I look at a corpse on the slab, it’s a cold, inanimate object, a matter of pure science. Someone else will have to do it. Anyway, Tom, what’s your interest? I take it he was a friend of yours, too.’
‘Lydia knew him vaguely, but I never met the fellow. I am interested in the manner and timing of his death, however. There is something strange about it all.’
‘Something you have taken it upon yourself to investigate? Have you ever thought of quitting academia and joining the CID?’
Wilde told him of Lydia’s visit to Charlecote and of Marcus Marfield and his nightmares. ‘Lydia said the doctor had changed when she saw him after the session. Probably means nothing, but I hate coincidence or anything left unexplained. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. All slightly tenuous, I realise.’
‘Perhaps not, Tom.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, actually, I have my own doubts about the death of poor Eric. You know he was found up on Little Trees Hill?’
‘Yes, I heard it was the Gogs. I didn’t know which hill precisely.’
‘Wonderful place, beautiful views over Cambridge. Perfect for walking dogs.’
‘And birdwatching.’ Wilde had seen a meadow pipit up there earlier in the summer before their trip to France.
‘I’ve spoken to the desk sergeant from St Andrew’s Street,’ Weir continued. ‘He told me a servic
e revolver was found at Eric’s side, one bullet fired into the temple. Burn marks suggest close range. The sergeant assured me that it’s quite commonplace to see a rise in the number of suicides at a time of great crisis in national affairs, but I already knew that. So everything would naturally point to a self-inflicted death.’ He shrugged. ‘Case closed, eh?’
‘But you don’t think so?’
‘No, I don’t. He had been through a lot, but everything I know about him tells me he wouldn’t have done it. Not Eric. And there was something else . . .’
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s a matter of practicalities. How did Eric get there? He lived at Great Shelford. And that’s a couple of miles from Little Trees.’
Wilde knew Great Shelford. ‘That’s no distance, Rupert. Surely no more than half an hour’s walk. Perhaps he was building up his courage as he strode alone late at night. Perhaps the hill had some significance for him.’
‘Maybe it did. And yes, Great Shelford to Little Trees Hill would be a short walk for you and me. But not for Eric. He had severe arthritis in his hips. He couldn’t play golf any more and had to drive everywhere. To get there by foot would have taken hours and every step would have been sheer bloody agony.’
‘But you say he could drive still?’
‘Yes. But he didn’t on this occasion. I asked the sergeant and he said there was no sign of a car at the hill, and Eric’s own car was still at home. So how in God’s name did he get there, Tom?’
*
Miss Hollick had been crying. Her cheeks were streaked and her eye make-up had run. She no longer looked like a ferocious gatekeeper, merely a distraught human being. Lydia put an arm around her and tried to comfort her.
‘Don’t you think you should go home, Miss Hollick? No one would expect you to work after this.’
‘I have to call all his patients,’ she said. ‘Someone has to be here to sort everything out.’
‘Of course, but I’m sure someone else could take over. The switchboard, perhaps? Look, why don’t I see if I can fetch you a cup of tea?’
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