by H. Y. Hanna
“Dr Gaber, I’m so pleased to meet you at last. I’ve heard so much about your work!”
The beautiful dark eyes regarded me shrewdly and I realised belatedly that Leila Gaber was no bumbling academic to be easily taken in by empty flattery.
“You are interested in Ethnoarchaeology? Which areas of my work on relational analogies do you find most interesting?” she said, a smile curling the corners of her mouth.
Yikes. “I… um… I didn’t have a specific focus… Your… uh… your research is all so… interesting.” Quickly, I changed the subject. “I love your dress,” I said, this time with sincere admiration. “The embroidery is absolutely gorgeous. Is it a traditional Egyptian outfit?”
Leila Gaber smiled. “Well, not an ancient Egyptian one. This is a thobe, a traditional Arabic dress for ladies. Most of us modern Egyptians are descended from Arabs, you know, rather than from Cleopatra, and have assimilated Arabian culture into Egypt.”
Her English was fluent but overlaid with a heavy Middle Eastern accent and the overall effect was charming.
“That’s fascinating,” I said. “Have you been at Oxford long?”
“Long enough,” she said with another of those Mona Lisa smiles. “And yourself?”
“I was a student here,” I said. “But I’ve been away—I was working in Australia—and I only returned a few months ago.”
“To work for the University?”
I laughed and shook my head. “No, I run a tearoom in Meadowford-on-Smythe. It’s a little Cotswolds village on the outskirts of Oxford.”
“So did you study medicine at Oxford then?” she said, gesturing around the room. I realised she was wondering why I was a guest at this dinner.
“I’m here with a friend, who is a doctor,” I explained. “He’s the keynote speaker tonight, actually.”
“Ah. Yes. Dr Lincoln Green.” She glanced across the room at Lincoln, then back at me with a smile. “There are many who would think you very lucky.”
I blushed slightly. “Lincoln and I are just friends,” I said quickly. “And yourself? Do you have an interest in medicine?”
“I am here as a guest as well,” she said. “The Tutor for Medicine at Wadsworth—Dr Al-Aker—is Egyptian and also an old friend. And he knows I am currently conducting research into the relationship between mortuary practices, society, and ideology. I am particularly interested in the increased use of hygiene, science, and medicine as agencies of social control.”
“Do you have to do a lot of hands-on research?”
“Yes, although there is a large amount of literature to study as well. I am lucky, of course, to be working in one of the top universities in the world, with access to some of the rarest books and manuscripts available.”
“I suppose you must spend a lot of time in the library,” I said casually.
“Oh, many nights I am there until very late, yes.”
I opened my eyes very wide, as if I suddenly realised something. “Oh! Were you at the library last Friday night? I heard that a professor was murdered here in Wadsworth!”
She gave me a sharp glance but I kept my expression innocently curious. Finally, she said, “Yes, I was here. In fact, I think I was in the library during the time the murder was taking place, just outside, in the Cloisters.”
I gave a mock shudder. “Oh, that’s horrible! When you found out, it must have been really creepy!”
“It was not pleasant,” agreed Leila Gaber.
“Did you know him?”
She gave me a wry look. “Quentin Barrow? Only too well.”
I said nothing, hoping that she would elaborate but Leila Gaber wasn’t Joan Barrow and the silence trick wasn’t going to work on her. She simply gave me that mysterious smile again. After a moment, I said:
“Do they have any idea how he was killed?”
“He was stabbed through the neck. With a dagger that belonged to me,” Leila Gaber added coolly.
I was thrown by her bluntness. “Oh… er… my God, really? But… how did the murderer get hold of your dagger?”
“It was a souvenir which I brought with me from Egypt. I was using it on my desk—to open letters and such. But it was not in my possession at the time of the murder. I had lent it—to the young Chemistry tutor at Gloucester College. In fact, it was he who discovered the body.”
I gave another exaggerated shudder and said, “Aren’t you scared at the thought of a murderer running loose around the college?”
“No.” Leila Gaber looked amused. “I do not believe that this was a random killing. I believe it was—as the ancient Babylonians use to say—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”
“Revenge? You mean, he had enemies?”
“We all have enemies,” she said with that sly smile again. “But yes, in this case, I think there were many times when Professor Barrow was careless in the way he treated others. You can only kick a dog so many times before it will turn around and bite you.”
She looked away, then back at me. “It is wrong, I know, to say such things, but in many ways, it is good that Quentin Barrow is dead.”
I stared at her, disturbed at the casual way she had voiced such a ruthless sentiment in the middle of such an elegant, refined setting. She gave me that Mona Lisa smile again, knowing that she had shocked me, then turned and addressed a comment to the gentlemen around us, who had been hovering respectfully nearby. Instantly, they gave her their full attention, and soon everyone was laughing once more at some joke she had made.
I let myself be edged to the back of the group and stood watching the way they clustered around her. Oh yes, Leila Gaber was skilled at manipulating others and so charming that they wouldn’t even realise they were being manipulated. She was ruthless and ambitious and capable of anything. The question was, did that include murder?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The tinkling of a fork being struck against glass announced that it was time to take our places at the tables. The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough. I was seated with Lincoln and several other clinicians and I wondered if I had let myself in for a night of gory details about gross medical procedures and terrifying diseases. Doctors and medical types just can’t seem to stop talking shop whenever they get together. But tonight, they seemed to be making an effort to behave themselves and I was treated to nothing more graphic than a description of a son’s broken elbow while playing school rugby.
Dinner was a four-course meal, starting with broccoli and Stilton soup, then stuffed quail with roasted garlic, followed by rack of lamb on crushed minted peas and creamy mash potato, and then finally dessert: triple layered chocolate tart with orange compote. All washed down with glasses of red and white wine which were continually refilled by the college waiters.
It had been a while since I had sat down to such a formal meal and the array of knives and forks and spoons laid out around my plate was slightly intimidating. I remembered the basic rule, of course—start from the outside and work your way in, and always, always scoop away from your body when using the soup spoon—but it still felt slightly strange to be eating in such a formal setting. Life in Australia was so much more laid-back, with none of the fussy British etiquette, and I’d got used to a more casual way of doing things. Of course, most places in the U.K. weren’t like this—Oxford was the epitome of British pomp and ceremony. Only Cambridge and Buckingham Palace could probably match it.
After the plates had been cleared, there was tea and coffee, cheese and crackers, and vintage port for those who hadn’t had enough alcohol yet. I wasn’t much of a drinker but I did love anything sweet and port was right up my alley. Wadsworth College had its own cellar and these were specially decanted bottles. I sipped the rich, sweet, plummy wine as I listened to Lincoln give his talk.
I had to admit, most of it went over my head and my thoughts wandered. I couldn’t stop thinking about the murder—something I had heard earlier during the drinks was nagging at me. I had a feeling it was important but I couldn’t pu
t my finger on what the comment had been. It was frustrating. I also found that I was preoccupied watching Leila Gaber at the other end of the table. Every so often, she would glance over and our eyes would meet, and she would give me that secretive smile again. To be honest, I found it a bit creepy.
I was glad when the dinner was officially over at last and we all drifted out into the main quad. As we began strolling towards the front gate, I turned impulsively to Lincoln and said:
“Lincoln, can you help me with something?”
“Sure,” he said, looking at me questioningly.
“I want to try and recreate the night of the murder,” I said, keeping my voice lowered so the other guests passing us couldn’t overhear. “I want to see just how long it takes to run from the Cloisters, through the tunnel and the Walled Garden and the two quads, to get to the front gate. Professor Barrow was last seen alive around 12:10 a.m. and his body was discovered by Seth at around 12:30 a.m., so there’s a twenty-minute gap when the murderer could have killed him and made his or her escape.”
“Okay…” said Lincoln, looking slightly bemused. “How can I help?”
I looked at his evening clothes doubtfully. “Well, if you don’t mind running in black tie… could you do a trial run for me? It’s just that… you see, I’ve got this suspect in mind: a tramp who was seen on CCTV on the street just outside the college around the time of the murder. He could have just been loitering there and it’s all a coincidence, but I wondered… And he’s a big fellow, you see—even taller than you—so it would be more realistic if you did the run. You’d have similar strides. Otherwise, I would have done it myself.”
Lincoln still looked slightly bemused but he gave me a good-humoured smile and said, “Sure. Wouldn’t hurt to work off that dinner anyway.”
We walked together through the darkened college. It was quieter tonight, being a Monday night—no parties and most students would either be in their rooms studying or out at various University society meetings. The dining hall was on the opposite side to the Cloisters and we had to cross the main quad, the smaller Yardley Quad, walk around the Walled Garden, and finally through the tunnel behind the library building to reach the Cloisters.
I turned right as soon as we entered the Cloisters and walked a few steps along the covered arcade, then paused, getting my bearings. Based on what Seth had said—and on the vestiges of police activity in this area—I guessed that this was where the body had been found.
“Here,” I said to Lincoln. “I think the murderer must have started running from around here.”
“Okay,” said Lincoln, shrugging out of his dinner jacket and handing it to me. “I’ll stop when I get outside the front gate and check how long it took me—and then I’ll come back.”
“Thanks, Lincoln,” I said gratefully. Then I caught his arm as he started to turn away. “Oh, wait! I just thought of something… the tramp… Jim… he had a limp.”
“You want me to fake a limp too?” said Lincoln with a grin.
I laughed. “No, no… but maybe don’t run at your top speed. Slow down a bit on purpose, to take the limp into account.”
He nodded and took off. I watched him disappear around the corner, into the passageway, then settled down to wait. It was a clear, cloudless night and very cold, especially here in the darkness of the Cloisters. My breath drifted out in front of me like pale ghostly forms. I should have had a proper coat but vanity had made me only bring a pretty pashmina over my thin black dress and my feet, in the three-inch stilettos, were cramped and freezing. I shivered, then remembered that I was holding Lincoln’s dinner jacket and draped it gratefully around my shoulders.
I walked over to the side of the arcade that faced the cloister garth—the open central courtyard—and huddled against one of the carved stone columns, pulling the jacket tighter around me for warmth. I looked around, up at the vaulted stone ceiling above my head, etched with intricate carvings, and the rows of repeating arches and pillars, stretching away from me in both directions.
I shivered again, though this time not so much from the cold. Okay, so I didn’t believe in ghosts, but when you’re alone in the darkened recesses of a medieval monastic structure… Not that I was unfamiliar with cloisters; several Oxford colleges had cloisters, including my own. I’d always found them a bit spooky, though. There was something about the Gothic architecture, the sinister gargoyles and the way light filtered in through the columns and was swallowed by the shadows of the arcade, that brought to mind medieval churches and secretive monks, and maybe even vampires and demons. And a murder had been committed here…
I laughed at myself and shook off my thoughts. I was letting my imagination run away with me. Pushing away from the stone column, I began to pace in a circle, partly to keep warm and partly to soothe my restless mind. I thought once more of the murder and the mystery of how the killer had escaped notice. There were not many rooms leading off from the Cloister: aside from entry to the college chapel, there were a few other doors which I assumed led to college administration offices, and on the opposite side was the back of the college library.
The murderer was unlikely to have hidden in any of the rooms—for one thing, he or she wouldn’t have had the keys to the doors—and anyway, even if the killer had somehow managed to hide in one of the rooms, the police had checked them all and found no one. The chapel was also out… so that left only the library.
The library. Yes, Seth had mentioned that there was a back door from the library storage room leading into the Cloisters. This would normally have been locked—but Leila Gaber had been in the library that night and Leila Gaber had the keys… It would have been easy for her to slip out, commit the murder, and then return to the library. We only had her word that she had been in the library the whole time and never knew about the murder taking place just outside.
But would she have done it? Knowing full well that she could be traced near the scene of the crime and that she had no real alibi, no one to vouch for her… Somehow, it seemed too bold, even for her.
Still, there was such a thing as a “double bluff”. Perhaps Leila knew that no one would believe that she could be that reckless—and so in a way, this made it safer for her because people wouldn’t consider that possibility seriously?
Argh. My head was spinning.
If it wasn’t Leila Gaber—then who? Who else had reason to want Barrow dead? Jim? The tramp could have wanted Barrow out of the way. Without the professor’s objections, the Domus Trust housing project was likely to go ahead and Jim would finally have a chance to get off the streets. But would someone really have killed for that? And how could he know that Barrow would be in the Cloisters at that time? I sighed. I couldn’t shake off the guilty feeling that fixating on Jim was the “easy” answer—that Seth was right: it was easier to imagine a homeless man being a criminal than a respectable Oxford academic…
… Or even a mousy suburban housewife.
My thoughts returned to Joan Barrow. Now, she was someone who did have good reason to want Barrow dead. I realised suddenly that Lincoln’s trial run would not only prove that Jim could have escaped in time before the police arrived but also that anyone else from outside the college could have too. Joan Barrow lived in Reading, but there was a regular train service from Oxford to Reading and vice versa. It was only a thirty-minute journey. And I knew that the trains ran late, with the last train from Oxford to Reading long after midnight.
I wondered if Joan Barrow had an alibi for last Friday night. Her invalid partner was hardly a reliable witness. In any case, he could have gone to bed early and she could have left the house quietly, come to Oxford, killed Barrow, and then took the last train back—and no one would have been wiser. I had to admit, I had trouble imagining that pale, colourless woman I’d met in my tearoom as a violent murderer—but who knew what anyone was capable of? And it was obvious that she was passionately devoted to her partner and bitterly resentful of her brother’s refusal to help them. She had said that s
he was familiar with Oxford. And she could have been familiar with her brother’s habits… She wasn’t a big woman, but Barrow would have been drunk, his senses dulled, his feet unsteady. Hadn’t Seth said that they had both had too much to drink that night? It would have been only too easy to lay in wait for Barrow in the shadows of the Cloisters and jump out to stab him before he could react…
The sound of footsteps echoing on the flagstones interrupted my thoughts. It was Lincoln returning. A minute later, his tall figure stepped out of the tunnel and into the Cloisters. He was puffing slightly, his eyes bright with exertion.
“I’d forgotten how exhilarating it can be to have a good run, especially in the cold,” he said with a grin. “Maybe I should take up jogging again.”
“What was the time?” I asked eagerly.
“Twelve minutes, give or take. Of course, I don’t know exactly how bad the tramp’s limp is and how much it might hamper his running—but even so, I think he could have done it at a stretch.”
I felt a surge of excitement. “Yes, and not just him but maybe a woman with shorter legs! I’ve been thinking, Lincoln: Barrow had a sister who—ahh!”
My words were cut off by a cry of pain. In my excitement, I hadn’t been looking where I was going and one of my high heels had sunk into a gap in between the flagstones. I tripped and stumbled, feeling my legs twist under me and then a sharp pain stab my left foot. Lincoln caught me before I fell and I gripped his arms gratefully, regaining my balance.
“Gemma? Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” I winced from the pain and looked down sheepishly. “I think I stabbed myself with my heel…”
We both looked down. I was right: somehow when I had tripped, my right foot had twisted over the left one and the sharp stiletto heel of the right shoe had sliced into the exposed fleshy part at the top of my left foot. I could see a deep gash and blood oozing freely.