Oxford.
Buildings in gently honeyed stone. Grassy lawns and deep flowerbeds. Tulips and daffs.
We drove here, to Oakeshott’s college. Arrived before him. Have been waiting an hour and more for him to turn up. I come back from a toilet break to find Jones standing well back in this gathering dusk.
He points to a lighted window.
‘He’s in there. Just turned up. Two students in with him.’
I nod.
This next bit. Do we do it police style or Guinevere style? That was always the question but we, the police, have almost nothing to frighten Oakeshott with. No hold, no squeeze of information.
We could just enter the room and hope that Oakeshott chooses to volunteer whatever information he has. But those childish pseudonyms? His attempts to avoid recognition? Those hardly suggest a man inclined to tell us all.
So Guinevere it is.
Jones doesn’t like that, but he has nothing better to suggest.
So Guinevere, Arthur’s queen, leaves the two men in their violet shadows and marches up to Oakeshott’s door.
I don’t knock, just enter.
Oakeshott’s room is an Oxford don’s room of the sort that an unimaginative set designer might have built. Lots of white bookshelves. Lots of books. A tumble of paper and more books on the desk, the floor, side-tables. Side-lamps with silk shades. Some old prints and maps in frames. A Georgian fireplace, unused. A little sideboard with decanters and glasses.
Also two students, both women. One dark-haired, one blonde. Pretty. The dark one has an extravagant loose polo neck and complicated jewellery. She’s either one of those people who gives off sex-drive under all circumstances or, equally possible, she half-fancies Oakeshott.
I say to Oakeshott, ‘Hi.’
He says, ‘Ah!’ Doesn’t look thrilled to see me, but thinks he needs to explain my entrance to his students. Says, ‘This is, uh . . .’
‘Gwenhwyfar,’ I say. And to the students add, ‘And you are?’
Felicity and Emma, they tell me.
I say, ‘Felicity, Emma, would you mind fucking off? Like, right now.’
They glance at Oakeshott who nods OK.
‘We’ll pick this up later,’ he tells them.
Once they’re gone, he says, ‘Look, I don’t appreciate—’
‘You don’t appreciate? I don’t appreciate being stood up by a dick who thought it would be funny to drag me out to some random place in Bath, just so he can take photos of me and not actually step over to say hello.’
‘OK. I’m sorry. I just needed to find out who you were.’
‘Oh, and how did that go exactly, dickbrain? Work out for you OK?’
‘No, but I haven’t yet—’
‘You haven’t yet distributed my photo to Uthyr, Medraut and the rest.’
‘No.’
‘Dick.’
I thump my bear down on his desk and glare at him.
My bear and my crown were my way of identifying myself in the restaurant, but the bear’s plasticky little nose happens to contain an audio transmitter which will beam this conversation through to the various boxes of tricks in the back of Jones’s surveillance van.
Oakeshott stares at me and asks, ‘So who are you?’
‘I’m Queen Fucking Guinevere. Here to replace the one whose head was cut off a few weeks ago, or have you forgotten that?’
‘No.’
‘So?’
‘So?’
‘So what the fucking hell is going on?’
Oakeshott twists the bear round on his desk. A really professional criminal would distrust that bear. Distrust me. Want to sweep us for transmitting devices. Want to avoid any possibility of recording. But you’ve got to be a pro to do those things right and Oakeshott’s day job is, after all, that of early medieval historian.
‘You followed me here?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I followed you back here using my superspy surveillance skills. Either that, or I recognised you the moment you walked into the fucking restaurant.’
‘You’re a historian?’
‘Yes.’
‘A medievalist?’
‘No. I’m really interested in the battlefields of the Second World War. That’s why I call myself Guinevere.’
The early-medieval history community is small enough that, if I were a historian working in that area, I could well have recognised one of our little firmament’s brightest stars.
Oakeshott scrutinises me, trying to place me. I look young for my age, but still older than the dewily new Emma-Felicity.
‘Graduate study?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘What if you’re police?’
‘Then you’re fucked.’
Which isn’t in fact true, but he might think it is. His distrust doesn’t vanish, though, so I choose to help him.
I go over to his little decanter area. Pick up one of them. Sherry, I’d guess. Dry or sweet or whichever is the more up-yourself middle-class version of that up-yourself middle-class drink. The decanter is about half full. It’s got the heaviness of lead crystal. It’s probably antique or belonged to his grandmother or was hand-cut by some overpaid craftsman in Donegal.
I lift it.
Drop it.
The thing doesn’t, unfortunately, break, but it does leak middle-class sherry all over his middle-class carpet.
I pick up one of his matching glasses. Hold it over the decanter.
Drop it.
The glass breaks, with a pleasingly explosive shatter.
Oakeshott looks at me, furious and appalled.
‘Not police,’ I say placidly. ‘See? I bet they’d get told off for doing stuff like that. Or sent on a course or something.’
I’m not quite sure what Jones’s attitude will be, in fact, but it’s a chance I’m happy to take. And of course we do need to force the issue. Everything about Oakeshott’s behaviour tells us that he’s hiding something we need to know but we don’t yet, in narrow police terms, have enough to force him to divulge.
I pick up some more glasses.
‘Put those down.’
‘Gaynor was a friend of mine. And someone cut off her head. And I don’t care about your fucking glassware.’
Drop them.
Break them.
The glass makes a wonderful sound, percussive and deep, but with a lovely tinkling overlay. That’s what you get from using those top-dollar Donegal craftspeople. What you get from all that lead in your crystal.
‘I didn’t kill Gaynor.’
‘I’m not saying you did.’
Get a meaty paperback from his shelves. A social history of women in England, ending in 1500. It looks interesting. I make as if to rip it down the spine.
‘Stop that. Just stop it.’
He comes over. Looms over. Is physically threatening.
I make a peaceable movement of my hands.
‘OK.’
Back away.
Sit in the chair that Emma or Felicity or Venetia or Charlotte or some other long-haired lovely last sat adoringly on.
‘All right. I won’t break anything else. I’ll just call the cops.’
Get out my phone. Start to dial the Cathays switchboard.
‘Don’t do that.’
‘You’re always telling me not to do things,’ I complain.
Hit the call button.
The call is picked up after a couple of rings. I ask to be put through to the Major Crimes team.
Oakeshott can’t stand it. Can’t stand the pressure.
He grabs for me, the phone.
Gets the phone and bends my fingers sharply back as he takes it. My fingers hurt and I yelp a loud ow! for the microphone, but I’m pleased he’s getting aggressive. It shows his decision-making is starting to deteriorate.
Also: Oakeshott is bigger than me, but I’m nastier.
With my free hand, I grab at his testicles.
Grab, squeeze, twist, pull.<
br />
That’s the correct order, I’m told. And since the person who told me used to teach unarmed combat in the Spetsnaz, the Russian special forces, I’m fairly sure he knew what he was talking about.
I expect that, if Oakeshott had the leisure to consider the matter, he’d agree too.
At any rate, he’s doubling forward in that delightfully easy to access male agony, when I grab his tie, hook my foot around his ankles and shove.
He falls hard, hitting his head against his desk on the way down.
I keep my hand bunched up on his tie and pressed tight against his Adam’s apple.
‘If you lay a hand on me one more time, I will call the police and report assault. If you ask me to leave the room, I’m happy to do so. If you want me to pay for your broken glass, I’ll do that too. But if I leave the room without knowing what the hell happened to Gaynor, I will call the police and tell them everything I know.’
I say that first part about the assault for the listening microphone. To place on the record that Oakeshott assaulted me and to mark the total absence of denial from him. Ditto the thing about my being ready to leave and pay for any damage.
I keep my hand up tight against his neck until the fire of anger changes in his eyes. Becomes something more like the smoulder of defeat.
I move my hand. Pick up my phone.
Get the Cathays number back up. Hover over the call button.
‘Well?’
‘I’ve done nothing illegal.’
‘Fair enough.’
I make the call.
‘Major Crimes, please.’
‘Who’s calling?’
‘Gwenhwyfar.’
‘Can I have a full name, please, caller?’
‘Sorry, no, I’d prefer to remain anonymous.’
‘Putting you through now.’
Calling Major Crimes after hours is a little chancy in all honesty. I often work late. So does Jones. Aside from us, though, most of my dear colleagues pelt out of the office by six o’clock at the latest, and we’re already past that hour.
But I’m in luck. Mervyn Rogers picks up grumpily.
‘Major Crimes,’ he says, as though asking me to order something from a takeout menu. ‘This is Bleddyn Jones speaking.’
Good man! I was a little worried about making the call because, assuming that anyone was there to pick up, any of my colleagues would certainly recognise my voice. Rogers, in particular, would be likely to arse around if I called up pretending to not be me. Giving his name as Bleddyn Jones is his way of telling me that Jones already phoned ahead to warn him that I might make this call.
I say, ‘I’d like to remain anonymous for the moment, but I have some information regarding the recent murder of Dr Gaynor Charteris.’
Rogers starts to answer that, but Oakeshott has levered himself up from the floor and is making a vigorous horizontal chopping motion with his hand, asking me to cut the call.
Interrupting Rogers, I say, ‘Just a moment,’ and mute the phone.
Oakeshott says – croaks – ‘Come back here tomorrow. I’ll tell you what you need. It’s just – there are – look, there are people I need to talk to first. There are others in this too.’
I say – phone still connected, still muted – ‘Tomorrow evening? Six o’clock? No bollocks?’
He nods.
‘Is that a “yes”?’
‘Yes.’
I unmute the phone. Say, ‘Sorry I’ll need to call you back. Expect a call from this number at seven o’clock tomorrow evening.’
Cut the line. Turn the phone off. Open the back and remove the battery. Drop the bits in my pocket.
Oakeshott, meanwhile, has put his desk between himself and me. Keeps plucking at his collar, adjusting things around his crotch, rubbing his head where he banged it.
My teddy bear is still on his desk. I leave it right where it is.
Standing up, and gesturing at the broken glass, I say, ‘Nice room, but you should tidy up the crap.’
Leave.
In the green shadows and violet light of the gardens, I see Felicity and Emma still hanging around. Curiosity, perhaps, but also a mild concern for their tutor’s well-being. Perhaps they heard the smashing.
I walk past them, heading for the exit, heading for the street.
19
Three of us in the van. Jones on the audio controls, crouching over them like an anxious sound technician.
Sounds of Oakeshott clearing up. A swearword as he cuts himself on something. I laugh. Jones glowers.
Then women’s voices, checking on their wounded hero.
‘Those are the students,’ I say. ‘Felicity and Emma. I didn’t get surnames.’
Oakeshott says something that’s meant to be calming. He calls me ‘a troubled young woman’: an entirely accurate description. He says, ‘It’s sad, really,’ and says, no, he’s OK tidying up on his own.
The students go.
More tidying.
In the van, Jones says. ‘That was totally unprofessional, what you did in there. I’ll have to review this.’
That annoys me. Review what? He knows what I did in there. If he wants to give me a bollocking, he should give me a bollocking.
I say, ‘Undercover officers are encouraged to think on their feet in what may well be dangerous and fast-moving situations.’
‘You’re not undercover-trained.’
‘I am.’
‘What? You did the course? That Undercover Training thing?’
‘The Undercover Training and Assessment Course. Yes.’
‘And passed?’
‘Yes.’
Jones digests that. The course in question is specialist and hard. Few officers put themselves forward, and the vast majority of those who do fail to complete it. He tries to figure out how that information might or might not affect matters.
Decides it’s still safer to be antsy.
‘Even so, it was totally unprofessional. This could be a disciplinary matter.’
‘So I’m not allowed to protect myself if I’m assaulted?’
‘No, I’m OK with that. It’s the—’
‘I broke four glasses for which I offered to pay. Four glasses. Are you saying that is not a proportionate measure to be taken in the context of an active murder enquiry? An enquiry where we are currently short of leads and where the subject is clearly withholding information and frightened of police involvement?’
‘No, look, all I’m saying is I might need to review this.’
I shrug.
Don’t care.
Moron.
We turn the audio feed up, leaning into that crackling silence.
Whatever Oakeshott has been up to, he clearly has co-conspirators and ones he now feels pressured into communicating with. That’s the good news.
But there was bad news too. He said, in so many words, I’ve done nothing illegal. That, and I didn’t kill Gaynor. Those statements basically kill any chance we have of getting an interception warrant on Oakeshott’s phone. Surveillance that invades the privacy of an innocent third party is not totally outlawed, but the case in favour has to be exceptionally strong and what we have isn’t strong enough.
Knowing all this, Jones is twitchy about continuing our teddy-bear-based surveillance. He’s in a Jonesian nightmare. On the one hand, a high-profile enquiry without adequate leads. On the other, a possible breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
Rock. Hard place.
Moron.
We listen in, willing him to make a call. Willing him to make the kind of call which will permit our continuing surveillance.
But when he picks up the phone, it’s his wife he calls.
‘Darling, it’s me. Sorry, I’m running a bit late, but . . .’
Fuck it.
Jones kills the connection. The van fills with the burr of traffic outside. The creak of our elderly seating.
So. Tomorrow evening. We wait till then.
We drive back to Cardiff.
Green shadows. Violet light.
And the sweet, sweet sound of breaking glass.
20
Jones, the pillock, spends the night thinking about what to do and decides that his butt would be best covered by giving me a formal written warning.
‘On due consideration, I have come to the conclusion that your behaviour in relation to John Oakeshott was excessively confrontational and not in keeping with the standards to be expected of the South Wales CID.’
Blah, blah, blah.
He gives me a letter and yaps at me.
I don’t read it. Don’t even listen, or not properly. I’ve had plenty of first-stage disciplinary things in the past and I can’t see that this one is going to turn into a second-stager.
I say ‘Yes, sir,’ for a bit and try to look like a newly beaten puppy but, when I get bored of all that, I interrupt to say, ‘So, this evening, how are we going to play it?’
‘Well, as you’ll gather, I think a more measured approach—’
‘I’m thinking maybe I should apologise for yesterday and write out a cheque for the stuff I broke.’
‘I think you do need to compensate him, yes.’
‘But I should also make it really clear that no adverse consequence will befall him if he chooses not to tell me anything. I mean, it’s important to remove that sense of pressure.’
‘No, no, I wouldn’t go so far as—’
‘I’ll give him some cash, apologise for swearing, call him “Mr Oakeshott” or maybe “sir”, and ask very politely if he wants to tell me anything. Make it clear that it’s OK if he doesn’t.’
Jones does that hatred look again.
Narrow eyes. Cold lips.
I don’t think I have any more second chances with the good Inspector Jones. He says, very coldly, ‘I will give you written instructions.’
We exchange smiles made of ice and snow.
Japanese martial artists bowing over tatami mats.
But, as it turns out, Jones never writes his instructions. I never get to make nice to Oakeshott – or smash up more of his things – or anything else.
Because, as we turn to our databases, start to research the guy in more detail than was possible yesterday, we come across a crime report, dated today.
Not long after dawn this morning, a corpse, three stab wounds in its side and belly, was recovered from the canal that skirts the western edge of Oxford. No cash, cards or telephone were found on the victim, but an identification was quickly made via a Missing Persons report, lodged the evening before. The victim’s wife has already identified the corpse as John Phillip Oakeshott. While theft is being considered as a possible motive for the attack, it is noted that an unknown woman entered his room in Worcester College the evening before and appears to have been responsible for some broken glassware, which is currently under examination by Thames Valley forensics.
The Deepest Grave: Fiona Griffiths Crime Thriller Series Book 6 (Fiona Griffiths 6) Page 13