by Nancy Warren
"He kept saying he did, but then he never brought it forward. It was as though he simply couldn't find his supposed manuscript. Of course, the damn thing never existed. I suspect he was eaten up with jealousy and, very likely, psychologically troubled."
"Whatever happened to him, do you know?"
He shook his head. "He disappeared quite quickly after he got nowhere with his absurd claims. He was a five-minute wonder. I've never seen him since. No. No idea what happened to him."
I felt Martin Hodgins hadn’t had a fair hearing. Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, because I wanted Gemma’s father to be more than a drunk and a literary laughing stock.
"What about the essay? That plagiarized essay? What happened to it?"
His eyes sharpened on my face. It was the first time I was aware of even a hint of suspicion about my motives in meeting with him. "Why on earth would that be of interest to you?"
I imagined grad students researched their way down all sorts of blind alleys, so I shrugged. "I thought I might look at how the influence of his friend, during those early years at Oxford, might have affected Sanderson's work. It's just a vague idea at the moment."
His suspicion disappeared. Now, his eyes twinkled and he looked fatherly. "Looking for a fresh angle, I see." He nodded. "It's what you need to get any decent funding these days. I must admit it’s unusual. I don’t think anyone’s studied the relationship between Sanderson and his closest friend and rival in his undergrad years."
I nodded, grateful. “Exactly. Especially as his book came out so soon after Dominic Sanderson graduated. He said he’d talked his ideas over with his close friend. I’m curious if I can find anything that might be seen as an influence on the author’s work.”
He said, "I wish you luck. I doubt you’ll find anything useful, but you never know. The paper would be kept in physical copy, of course. It was written before computers.”
“Any chance I could see the essay?”
“You’d have to be a student of this college.”
I looked suitably disappointed. Then, in order to maintain the fiction that I actually was a grad student, I asked some questions that Rafe had helped me prepare about Sanderson's influences. Professor Naylor was more than happy to oblige me and pontificated at length.
When he finally wound down I said, with my most winning look, "Isn’t there any way I might obtain a copy of Martin Hodgins’ essay?"
I could tell that he wanted to impress me. "I'll see what I can do. Give me a call tomorrow. It won't be the original, of course, but I might be able to obtain a copy."
I rose. "That would be amazing. I can't thank you enough for your time today." I held out my hand and he stood up and shook it. "I wish you good luck in your thesis, my dear. And I hope you enjoy your time in Oxford."
"Thank you so much," I said, switching off my voice recorder and dropping it into my bag, along with the notebook that had very few notes written in it.
As I left his office I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d managed to impersonate a student and had obtained some pretty interesting information.
Chapter 13
Rafe was waiting for me when I got back to the shop. I made him wait while I checked in with Meri and Violet. The shop was running so smoothly I wondered why I bothered to come and work at all.
Violet reminded me that the solstice celebration was next week and I developed a sudden and profound deafness.
I said to Rafe, "We can’t go upstairs, the knitting factory is going full force up there."
“You can tell me what you discovered in the car. We’re going on a road trip."
I felt like a super sleuth, undertaking two scouting adventures in one day. "Are we going where I think we’re going?"
He shook his head at me. "I imagine so."
"I’ll check in with Gran and be right with you." I ran upstairs and saw that the knitters were going full force. It was a pleasure to watch those needles fly and see exquisite creations appear almost like magic.
Having confirmed that Mabel would carry down the latest batch of knitting to the market and would bring back the bank deposit, I was free to go. "You’ve been working so hard, lately, dear. It will do you good to get out for a drive."
I ran to the bathroom and brushed my teeth and freshened my makeup. I swapped my fake grad student outfit for a super-sleuth cat burglar getup consisting of black skinny jeans, a pair of black running shoes, black T-shirt and black hand-knitted pullover. I added black gloves and a woolen hat, also black, that would keep my ears warm. I could also tuck my long, blond hair up into it in case there was any breaking and entering required.
I brought my bag along with me so Rafe and I could listen to the tape of my interview while we drove.
He looked slightly amused when he saw me dressed all in black, but there wasn't much he could say since he was also dressed all in black. Though, with Rafe, it was his usual look. He was not one for bright colors.
I thought for Christmas I might get him the most garish Christmas sweater I could find. Something in red and green with a Rudolph nose that lit up, just to see if I could get him to wear it, even for a minute.
He’d parked the Tesla in the lane behind the entrance to my flat, so we were on the road in no time.
"My interview went so well," I exclaimed, too excited to wait for him to ask the questions. "Professor Naylor is so thrilled that he knew the famous Dominic Sanderson when they were young, and that he knew all about that scandal, I bet it's the most exciting thing that's ever happened to him. He kept calling them Sanders and Hodge, their college nicknames, I presume, so I’d know they were tight."
“Like many professors, he teaches about genius rather than possessing it."
I felt slightly miffed on behalf of my parents. "Professors can be brilliant, too."
"They can. And teaching is a fine and noble profession. But, there's an expression you've no doubt heard: Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."
I looked at him sideways. "You teach."
He slid his gaze sideways right back at me. "Yes, I do. I can't invent the brilliant manuscripts I value and preserve, I can only appreciate them and share my knowledge so that others may appreciate them, too."
"So we’re agreed, then, that teaching is a good thing."
He chuckled. "We are. Now, stop arguing and let's get on with the interview. What did you discover?"
I jumped right to the chase. "Guess who thinks he might be able to get me a photocopy of a certain plagiarized essay? I'm phoning him tomorrow."
"Very impressive. What else did he say?"
I pulled out the recorder and played the interview for Rafe. I was pleased to hear it myself because I'd been so caught up in thinking how I might ask pertinent questions and worrying that he might ask me something about Sanderson's work and catch me out as a fraud, that I hadn't been able to relax and actually listen properly to what he'd been saying.
Neither of us said a word until the interview drew to a close. I asked, "Well? What are your impressions?"
He breathed in and out slowly. Rafe was not a man who ever rushed. Certainly not to judgment. "That sounded like a story he's told so many times he believes it."
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "You mean he's lying?" That hadn't occurred to me.
He shook his head. "No. But he’s recalling events from forty years ago. Sanderson's now a famous novelist. Naylor makes his living teaching his work. His chummy, anecdotal recollections fit in well with the mythology that Sanderson has helped to create around his own work."
I nodded. "You're right. Even to the point that he suggested that Martin Hodgins might have been mentally ill."
"Hodgins didn't do himself any favors when he first brought the claim. Professor Naylor was right. In interviews he did ramble. He didn't come across as credible, which made him very easy to dismiss."
I turned in my seat to look at Rafe's profile. It was clean and sharp. If I ran my fingertip down the bridge of his nose it would be dead
straight. Naturally, I didn't. "Are you starting to think that maybe Martin Hodgins did plagiarize that essay? And Sanderson is the real author of the Chronicles?"
I was profoundly disappointed by this. I liked our quest to prove that Gemma’s father was a literary genius who’d been unfairly maligned and had his life's work stolen from him. If Rafe was going to side with Sanderson, I wasn't sure I could complete this quest on my own. But, to my relief, he said, "No. There's a very real possibility that Martin Hodgins is the genuine author. Hopefully we'll know more soon."
"What are we looking for, exactly?"
"These manuscript pages that Gemma had, they came from somewhere. I'm keen to find the rest of the manuscript. I'm also hoping that Martin Hodgins still has the source materials that he referenced. Even better, if he's scribbled in the margins. If he can help us make the connections to where he got some of his ideas from and how he came up with place names and character names and so on, he’d be able to make the arguments he seemed unable to make four decades ago.”
“Yes. Maybe he didn’t have anyone on his side and then started drinking, which made everything worse for him. However, the best way Sanderson could have proven beyond any doubt he was the author was to have written another novel. Why hasn't Sanderson put out another book in forty years? He presents the world with an astonishingly brilliant and compelling fantasy trilogy in his mid-twenties and then never writes another thing? Why does Sanderson stop?"
"Because, as he’s said in interviews, he felt he’d said what he had to say in the trilogy.” Rafe glanced over at me. “Or, he never wrote the books in the first place."
An idea hit me, so exciting that I jumped up and down on the seat. "What if Martin Hodgins has been secretly writing all these years? Maybe he's got a whole bookshelf of manuscripts?"
"I wouldn’t get your hopes up. I suspect your friend Professor Naylor was right and he did take to drink. I think his best friend’s betrayal and the theft of his work probably broke him. Because, of course, your argument works both ways. If Martin Hodgins wrote the Chronicles, why has he never written another novel since?"
We cruised along the M40 motorway toward Crawley and I reached for the water bottle in my bag. I’d talked so much today, I had a dry throat. Still, I didn’t remain quiet. "That's so sad. His whole career was stolen from him. And all the books he might've written in the last forty years, gone, because his closest friend betrayed him."
"Yes, I think Professor Naylor got it right. This is a story of Shakespearean tragedy and farce. It’s just that the characters are reversed.”
"So, we have to put literary history right."
“Exactly.” We turned onto the M25 and traffic grew heavy.
“Where are we going, anyway? “I’d seen signs to Crawley, but Gemma hadn’t mentioned that her father lived there, too.
“Balcombe. It’s a small Sussex village, a few miles from Crawley.”
Interesting that the father lived close to his daughter. I wondered if they’d grown closer since she’d lost her mother. They were clearly friendly enough that he’d given her some of the manuscript, and she’d come to Oxford believing he’d written the Chronicles. I wondered what she’d intended to do with those pages. "Martin Hodgins is only sixty-five. I believe once he gets his reputation back, he'll get a whole new lease on life."
"I hope you're right."
I hoped so too.
We drove into the village center, with a strip of shops and, above them, tidy looking homes. Rafe said, “He lives outside of town, on a housing estate.” I had a feeling that people lived on housing estates weren’t exactly well-to-do. As we turned into the road, an emergency vehicle sounded behind us and Rafe pulled over to let a fire engine pass in a blur of red.
I continued thinking about Martin Hodgins. "I just hope Gemma recovers. Getting fame and fortune in his reputation back will mean nothing to him if he loses his daughter."
"There's no reason to despair." He reached for my hand. "Try to say positive."
I knew he was right. He pulled over again to let another fire truck scream by, followed by an ambulance. We carried on in the wake of the speeding emergency vehicles. I didn't say anything, and I tried to ignore the feeling of doom that seemed to be crawling up my esophagus. No, Martin Hodgins couldn't be this unlucky.
Could he?
We couldn't get down the road where Martin Hodgins lived. It was blocked with emergency vehicles and trestles had been set up. A uniformed police officer stood there, moving the barricade to let the emergency vehicles through, but blocking the road to any other traffic.
I said, my voice sounding small, "It couldn't be Martin Hodgins, could it?"
"I don't know." But his tone was curt and I was fairly sure he thought, as I did, that our trip here may have been in vain.
Rafe got out of the car and walked up to the uniform. "We planned to visit Number 33. Martin Hodgins. Is he all right?"
The officer glanced back and then back at Rafe. "I'm very sorry sir. The fire started in Number 33."
I could see the blackened stone, the firefighters were pouring water into the windows and open door, but the smoke was still gushing out. And then I noticed a gurney with a blanket covering a body-shaped lump, outside on the sidewalk in front of the remains of Number 33. Two paramedics loaded the gurney into the back of the ambulance, but there was no hurry to their movements. And when the ambulance drove away, it didn’t put on its flashing lights or the siren.
Rafe got back in the car and we drove back the way we’d come. I turned to look over my shoulder, out the rearview window, and watched as the same police officer Rafe had been speaking to, moved the barricade out of the way so that the ambulance could make its somber journey.
I felt like crying. I knew that super sleuths and cat burglars didn't usually melt into tears at the first sign of trouble, but I was devastated. Gemma was in a coma, her father was dead, his home burned to the ground and his life's work stolen from him. The manuscript pages we’d hoped to find, the source materials, they’d all be burned to ash. How could the tragedy keep continuing? They’d had forty years of bad luck. I’d hoped for a Christmas miracle and instead, when Gemma woke up, it would be to more heartbreak.
I glanced over at Rafe and his jaw was set in a hard line.
My initial shock was punctuated by questions. What had happened? That was my first question. Had the fire been an accident? How could one man be so unlucky in a single lifetime? But if it wasn't an accident, then the fire was deliberately set. And who would want to go after a broken man whose life had been stolen from him?
The image of Darren rose up before me. Could he have come to see Gemma's father. Had he had violence on his mind?
Rafe asked if I wanted to stop and get coffee or a meal or something but I didn't. I wanted to get back home. I felt a strange sense of urgency, that I should go back to Oxford and protect Gemma. That feeling was so strong in me, I willed the car to go faster even though I kept my mouth shut. Rafe was an excellent driver but I think some of my anxiety communicated itself to him. He glanced over at me. "The police have her under surveillance, you know, there are always doctors and nurses surrounding her, and some of the vampires are keeping an eye on her, too. Gemma is as safe as she can possibly be."
I nodded. But still, my hands gripped and twined around each other in my lap. For once, I actually wished I had my knitting with me so it would give my restless hands something to do, and my restless thoughts something to focus on.
"The last thing Darren said to me, when I wouldn't give him any information about Gemma, was that he was going to see her father." I could have kicked myself for not telling Ian, or Rafe, but I’d only been thinking of Gemma and hoping he’d just go away.
I have said that Rafe was an excellent driver, and he was, but at my words the car swerved slightly as though he’d lost his concentration. "You saw Darren? The man who’s been harassing and stalking Gemma? The most likely suspect in her attempted murder?" He sounded angry but
he got that way when he was worried about me.
"It wasn't my idea," I said, indignant. "Alfred was with me. He can tell you exactly what happened. We were accosted by Gemma's ex as we were leaving the market. He kept asking questions about Gemma, how was she and where was she and when I wouldn't answer, he grabbed my arm." I recalled those moments vividly. "If I hadn't hustled Alfred away pretty quickly, there wouldn’t be much left of Darren right now."
"Good for Alfred."
I knew he didn't really mean that. Rafe believed in peaceful coexistence between our two species; he was also very protective of me.
We drove back the way we’d come. Traffic grew busier as we approached Oxford. It began to rain. "Do you think Darren killed Martin Hodgins? And then set the house on fire to cover up his crime?"
"I don't know. Somebody strangled Gemma and left her for dead. He's the most obvious suspect. According to what he told you, he planned to visit her father.”
“Maybe he turned up and Martin Hodgins didn’t know about his daughter’s condition. Darren might've thought her dad was lying. Maybe, he didn't mean to kill him. He was just going to rough him up a little to get the truth out of him, but he went too far, like he did with Gemma. He seems like a guy with a lot of anger in him."
Rafe didn't answer me and after a minute I looked across at him. "You don't like my theory?"
He considered my words. "It's a theory. But it’s not the only one."
We had a long way to go and only the two of us in this quiet car. I said, "Okay. Let's hear some of the other theories."
He let out a slow breath. "We know that Martin Hodgins had lost everything. His reputation, a budding career, possibly the ownership of his brilliant fantasy series, and his family. Perhaps he saw the fortieth anniversary retrospective of his old enemy’s brilliant success. Perhaps the hospital called him and told him his only child was in a coma. It was too much for him. He may have taken his own life.”
“Oh, no.”
Rafe smiled grimly. "With his fascination for ancient myths and rituals, he might've liked the idea of creating his own funeral pyre. He may have lived in obscurity, but he was going to go out in a burst of flame."