Error of Judgment

by Roy Lewis

  ‘I understand. But who in particular might have seen more than this of her?’

  ‘Well, the heads of the Faculties, I suppose.They come to see me more regularly than the rest of the staff and we have faculty meetings where Rosemary used to sit in and take notes. The heads would then get to know her, but again, I hardly feel that an intimate relationship could develop upon such grounds.’

  Intimate relationship? Peters must have been aware of the question in Crow’s mind, for he stumbled over his next, hurried words.

  ‘I . . . I . . . can certainly give you a short list of their names but I don’t really see any relevance in it all.’

  ‘Perhaps I should judge that matter, Dr Peters. The list, please.’

  He read the names out aloud, and Peters was quick to supply details of each.

  ‘J.R. Stevens.’

  ‘He’s the head of the Faculty which comprises Law, Economics and Professional Studies. He has a crippled wife.’

  ‘So Redman.’

  ‘Faculty head — Engineering. The faculty comprises four engineering departments. A good man — a Roman Catholic, I believe. He’s been here for eight months.’

  ‘P.R. Carliss.’

  ‘Head of the Faculty of Science. He . . . er . . . he’s a very able man.’

  Delivered in a tone of voice which means, Crow thought to himself, that Carliss doesn’t quite fit Peters’s picture of what a Faculty head should be.

  ‘O. Svensson.’

  ‘Faculty of Architecture. A temporary post; we’re advertising this summer for a man to take over.’

  ‘V. West.’

  ‘Mr West, yes, well he’s the Faculty head who’s concerned with Social Administration. Joined us six months ago. A quiet fellow, introverted.’

  ‘And all these men will be available for interview this afternoon?’

  ‘All but Mr West. I’m afraid he was taken ill yesterday afternoon. A heart attack, I understand. He’s now in Sedleigh Hospital.’

  ‘I see. Perhaps you’ll ask the others to stand by, Dr Peters, so that I can speak to them this afternoon. I’ll go in and see the registrar now.’

  Crow gained little from the man. He was a willowy, inoffensive person who was probably quietly efficient in his office but remarkably uncommunicative with the police inspector. It wasn’t that he refused to impart information; he had none to impart. He was an office automaton; a flick of his fingertips and he could produce statistical evidence on any student on the Burton registers, but this was all he was capable of doing. He obviously saw them not as people but as statistics; the office staff were machine operators, register collators, fee-collectors, but not individuals. He had nothing to say which could in any way colour the picture of Rosemary Harland. She had never existed for him as a person. He was as dead, Crow thought, as she was.

  Wilson was waiting outside the registrar’s office as he came out. He handed a sheet of paper to him.

  ‘I’ve just had a word with the doc and he’s fixed a time of death tentatively for us, though it’ll be subject to the findings at the lab, of course. She died sometime last night — probably after ten. She received a nasty head wound and her neck was broken. There’s no clue at the moment where she was murdered, but the doc thinks it certainly wasn’t in the lift. Now, this paper gives the names of people who were teaching here last night in evening classes, and the names of the caretaking staff employed here. The list is fairly long, as you’ll see, and includes some part-timers, but there is one point to remember. If she was killed after ten, few, if any, of these people will have been on the premises. The last class ended at nine p.m. The caretakers hope to be away each evening by nine-fifteen.’

  ‘That cuts two ways,’ Crow said morosely. ‘The one who did stay — he might not have been observed if there were few people around.’

  He walked past Wilson, tapped on the rector’s door and entered. Peters looked up from his desk; he had regained some of his colour and the way his mouth tightened at Crow’s entrance showed the inspector that he was beginning to get tired of answering questions.

  ‘The five Faculty heads. I’d like to see their personal files, Dr Peters.’

  The rector’s chin came up, slowly. His eyes had narrowed.

  ‘I see no reason why you need to pry into their personal files, Inspector.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I have a murder investigation to conduct. I’d like to see the files, please.’

  Peters hesitated, then rose and walked across to his filing cabinet. He extracted five folders, handed them to Crow, then without a word went back to his desk and sat down. His eyes didn’t move from Crow’s face but nothing was said. The eyes had carried a clear warning, nevertheless; don’t push too far.

  John Crow had never heeded warnings, particularly from people who had something to hide. Sensitive skins repaid scratching. ‘You didn’t let me finish, sir,’ Wilson observed when Crow left Peters’s office.

  ‘I didn’t?’

  ‘The scene-of-crime unit upstairs have discovered nothing, but one of the constables on the second floor came up with a glove which he has now handed to Kennedy.’

  ‘What sort of glove?’

  ‘Driving glove; leather backing, string palm. A man’s glove.’

  ‘Anything to connect it with the girl?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Get it along for forensic tests — see what they can make of it at the lab.’

  Crow made his way to the interview room. Heads turned as he entered. Three men stood in one corner, talking in low voices which stopped as he came in. Near the window Robert Fanshaw was in discussion with another man; Fanshaw saw Crow enter but finished his conversation. Crow paused.

  ‘I shall want to see each of you in turn, gentlemen, one at a time. We’ll use the room through there—’ he gestured towards the anteroom, beyond the heavy door — ‘and I should be grateful if you did not discuss the murder while you wait together here.’

  Which was as good as saying don’t breathe. Fanshaw was striding across the room.

  ‘I take it you’ll have finished with me, Inspector.’

  Crow opened his mouth but Fanshaw went on cheerily.

  ‘I’ve given my statement, and I’ve nothing to add to it at this stage so I see little point in continuing to sit around here. I have work to attend to so I’ll be on my way. I shall be available, of course, if you want to discuss anything further with me and if I can be of any assistance at all I shall be only too pleased to help . . .’

  Crow smiled thinly, and inclined his head. ‘I don’t think we need keep you any longer, Mr Fanshaw.’

  ‘Dr Peters can let you have my address and that of my office. If you need to get in touch, the office will let you know where I am.’

  He was gone. Crow watched the door close and then glanced at the other four men in the room. They shuffled their feet uneasily. ‘Wilson!’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘These gentlemen. One at a time.’

  Crow took the personal files of the four Faculty heads into the anteroom. He sat down with his back to the window and he stared at the file covers thoughtfully.

  Wilson was bringing in the first of the four Faculty heads.

  The interviews were not unproductive. Stevens came in first. He was a youngish man, with fair, carefully nurtured hair. He sat on the edge of his chair, was extremely polite, and was given to talking a little too much. People who did so, in Crow’s experience, had little to say. When he was asked about his relationship with Rosemary Harland he coloured a little and became somewhat evasive. Crow raised a query against his name, both as regards that relationship and as regards his whereabouts the previous night.

  Redman came next. A tall, balding Scot with an equine face, he had trouble arranging his legs, which insisted on cramping under his chair. His wriggling irritated Crow and brought an edge to his tongue that had not been apparent with Stevens. Redman made no protest. Crow was surprised; Scots were often prickly.

  Carliss wasn’t a Scot
, but he was prickly. He was from Penzance and had a mining and engineering background remarkably extensive for a man of his age. He was about forty-five, stocky, with thick stubby-fingered hands and an angry mouth. He was not prepared to take Crow’s questions quietly.

  ‘If you’re trying to say that I knew Rosemary Harland outside this office you’re nuts.’

  ‘My sanity isn’t in question.’

  ‘Neither are my morals! All right, I’ve been married, and I’m getting a divorce but as far as I’m concerned that’s got nothing to do with all this! My wife ran off with, of all things, a hairdresser from Stockport, but if you think that’s made me start looking around here for women you can think again. I’ve better things to do with my time. Chase Stevens up if you like, but don’t try to tar me with that kind of brush.’

  ‘Why should I chase Stevens up with such a question?’

  Carliss’s broad face twisted into a sneer. ‘He’s the skirt-lifter in this college, haven’t they told you that yet? He’s the feller who’s always up in the library chatting up the two assistants; he’s the Casanova who’s always drifting around on the social evenings; he’s the Romeo who mingles with the Graduate Secretarial group on coffee mornings when staff and students get together. I tell you, man, there’s not room for two characters like him in Burton!’

  ‘You seem to keep a close eye on him.’

  ‘He needs watching.’

  ‘Why should you watch?’

  Carliss shrugged and remained silent. His little eyes flickered away from the inspector and his pugnacious mouth settled in a thick line. He had talked too much; he was unwilling to say more.

  ‘Where were you last night, Mr Carliss?’

  ‘You want to know? The cinema.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You will, of course, be able to provide some corroboration — or tell me what film was showing and so on.’

  Carliss scowled and then suddenly fished in the pocket of his jacket to produce a ticket stub, tightly rolled, half-shredded.

  ‘A habit I have. I roll the ticket stub over and over, right through the time the film runs. I must have stuck this in my pocket last night, half way through.’

  Crow took the proffered stub gingerly and inspected it, rolling it out with a twist of distaste to his mouth as shreds of paper fell from it. He handed it back in disdain.

  ‘It could have been sold at any time; the number isn’t visible.’

  Carliss shrugged. ‘That’s your problem.’

  ‘It may develop into a problem for you. But we’ll see. Thank you, Mr Carliss. That’ll be all for now.’

  After Carliss had gone Crow smiled and his brown eyes were warm. Prickly men interested him — they were so unable to control their emotions that their motivations became transparent in quality. It could well be that Carliss was at the cinema while Rosemary Harland was being murdered, but the relationship between Carliss and Stevens needed looking at. They certainly were not friends.

  The last man to enter was Svensson. He was a caricature of an academic; thin, pale, bespectacled and bald, his myopia seemed to extend to his memory and his grasp of events. He was as hazy on dates as he was on names and he had the curious capacity of making the most patently honest remark seem like prevarication. Yet reputedly, from his file, he was a mathematician and an architect of quality. Crow was glad to see him stumble from the room. Svensson embarrassed him; he was too weak to be true.

  Stevens, Redman, Carliss, Svensson. And West. Crow thumbed through West’s file; there seemed little point to it, but he supposed he’d better get around to the hospital some time tomorrow to have a word with West. If he was fit to speak to the police.

  Crow leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. The digging would have to start now, and it had better start with the rector. He had been Rosemary Harland’s employer. Wilson could start with that. Crow would have a more unpleasant job to undertake while Wilson searched files and records. He’d have to go to see Rosemary Harland’s parents.

  Crow walked out of the anteroom and told Wilson that the Faculty heads could go. Then he walked out through the hall, past the rector’s office and the enquiry office. A girl stared at him over her typewriter as he walked past, tall, gaunt, ungainly. He ignored her.

  He stood in the glass doorway for a moment before stepping out on to the concrete apron. The campus was quiet in the late afternoon sunshine. The trees shone greenly, dipping their heavy branches in the light breeze and the sky was a deep blue. Crow noticed hardly any of this.

  He was wondering what had happened to all the students.

  There was not one student in sight. No lectures, all right, but no curiosity either? No poking-in of noses, no vicarious thrilling at the sight of the police marching around in their hunt for the murderer of Rosemary Harland? He stood there, and he wondered, and he heard a muted sound, a roar from the distance. Men shouting.

  A sudden thought stretched itself across his mind, lazily, like a yawning cat. It was still half- formed when he walked back into the hall and made his way to the office of the Academic Registrar. The willowy man with the pale hair looked up as Crow entered.

  ‘The caretakers,’ Crow said slowly. ‘They have keys to the building?’

  ‘Certainly, Inspector.’

  ‘Every part of the building — the business block?’

  ‘Only the chief porter and one caretaker, Smith, will have keys to the business block.’

  ‘You’ll have access to the keys.’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘And Dr Peters?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Crow grimaced. Rosemary Harland had died probably some time after ten o’clock last night. The classes had ended, the lecturers had gone, the cleaners and caretakers had locked up and left. But someone had stayed. For some reason, Rosemary Harland had still been in the building, and there had been someone else here too. Someone who would probably have been able to get access to the business block.

  His next question produced the answer he was seeking.

  ‘Oh, yes, they’ll have access, too. All five of them.’

  Stevens, Redman, Carliss, Svensson. And West.

  Chapter 2

  In Robert Fanshaw’s experience hospitals were unpleasant places. To a certain extent his view had been coloured by his recollection of the removal of a foreign body from his ankle. He had lain on an operating-table and watched the doctor cut off the supply of blood to his leg, then proceed to make a swift incision on the swollen ankle. It was not only the discharging fluid which had upset Fanshaw; it was also the glee in the doctor’s face when he had prodded a pair of what Fanshaw assumed to be tweezers into his patient’s face. Gripped by the tweezers had been a piece of bloody gristle.

  ‘Souvenir?’ the doctor had asked in a jolly voice. Fanshaw had been violently sick and he disliked being sick; it was an undignified reaction to stress. He had vomited since that occasion, of course, but with better reason. There had been the evening at the Conference in Scarborough, for instance, and again the Music Festival in Exeter. On the latter occasion the first violin had found him in full evening dress, asleep, bassoon clutched in his left hand, his left foot cocked up on the toilet-roll holder and a large lump on the back of his head. By way of explanation for his twelve-hour sojourn there, Fanshaw could only say that he had gained the drunken impression that he had been locked in the little cubicle. In an attempt to remove himself from his predicament he had placed his left foot on the toilet seat and, casting about for further support, his right foot upon the toilet roll. He had attempted to grasp the top of the cubicle wall, to climb out but this necessitated a transference of weight from toilet seat to toilet roll; unfortunately, true to its function, the latter rotated and Fanshaw was deposited, to lie snoring, on the tiled floor.

  He gave an immaculate performance the following evening, he remembered.

  But hospitals he disliked; the long, echoing, soulless corridors, the efficient, marching vir
agos in blue uniforms, the haughty, self-sufficient nurses, the casual doctors and subservient patients, and the odours. Nameless smells, tincture of chloroform and ether, poppy and blood and plasma, penicillin culture and eyeballs — the appalling words and images crowded in upon him whenever he thought of hospitals. When he was in one it was worse, and his sensitive soul cringed.

  Nevertheless, Robert Fanshaw possessed a sense of duty also so he sat in the draughty corridor waiting for the sister to allow him into the ward and he kept his knees together and his pale, slim hands on his knees and his eyes fixed on the window in front of him.

  Only when the echoing footsteps stopped beside his chair did he look up.

  ‘Good morning, Inspector. This is a surprise.’

  Inspector Crow also seemed surprised, and was not averse to expressing it.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  An interesting man, Crow, an ungainly, ugly man, whose unprepossessing appearance was softened by warm, intelligent eyes that missed little of consequence. Fanshaw smiled his elegant smile and stood up.

  ‘Mr West is here — but you’ll know that already, of course. It will be why you’ve come, I expect. I thought that as general inspector of the college I ought to call in to pay a visit.’

  ‘General inspector?’

  ‘We have two functions — general and specialist. As a specialist — my own specialism is business studies — we hold a divisional responsibility and enter, in my case, business studies departments. But we are also given general duties which demand that we oversee the work of a whole college and Burton is one of mine. This is why I tend to know most of the staff at Burton, whereas elsewhere my acquaintance is likely to be less close.’

  ‘This man West; do you know him well?’

  ‘Reasonably so. I’ve had no dealings with him in my specialist function, for his Faculty is Social Administration, but he was given responsibility for re-organizing the democratic structure of the academic committees and I watched his work with interest.’