by Maxine Barry
Markie saw his eyes flash, and felt a jolt of electricity flash through her.
The sudden loud applause released their mutual feelings of paralysis, and Callum rose to his feet, rising up as Markie tracked his progress, and her smile flashed bright and challenging.
‘Dr Fielding, congratulations,’ she said, handing over the bowl and then the long, flat brown envelope that came with it. The mega-cheque that ensured his research for the next five years. A Prize, for an academic, above all others.
And yet, as Callum Fielding took it from her, and saw her turn coolly away from him, he suddenly realised that the Kendall Prize was a mere shadow of what he wanted from this woman.
He wanted her to want him.
And the knowledge made him burn with unprecedented desire, whilst at the same time, his innate sense of caution made a cold, hard warning shiver run up the length of his spine.
* * *
It was now gone midnight.
Back in her room at Truman Hall, Rosemary Naismith poured herself a huge glass of brandy and stood by the drinks cabinet, gulping it noisily. Every now and then her teeth hit the glass, making a chattering sound, but she didn’t stop until all the liquor was gone. Then she poured a second bulbous glass and took it to the settee. She sat down carefully, on legs that felt made of nothing more substantial than air and water.
Her stomach churned, and she had to make a sudden dash for the bathroom.
Five minutes later, white and shaking, she returned to the living area that comprised the bulk of her rooms, and walked to the gas fire. But even though there was warmth, there was little comfort to be had from it. She gazed up from the fireplace and around the room, her face blank with shock.
She’d lived in these rooms in college for nearly fifteen years, yet everything, tonight, looked strange to her. As if she’d never seen it before. The Oxford skyline pen and ink drawing she’d bought from a flea market in Woodstock. The Oriental rug an ex-lover had given her as a present, on his return from a conference in Turkey. A highly polished bureau with very fine carving on the legs. None of it seemed familiar, somehow.
She knew, with one detached part of her mind, that she was in shock. She forced herself to take a hot shower, then climbed into bed. There she stared at the ceiling. Things were bad. Very bad.
But she’d think about that in the morning.
* * *
Tom Jenkins, the porter of St Bede’s, checked that everything was all squared away in the lodge for the final time, and that the kettle was unplugged. The main gates were already locked (college policy demanded that they be locked at ten-thirty p.m. every night) and he was just about to do the same for the lodge itself.
He turned out the lights and locked the door behind him, then hesitated as he glanced upwards and saw the lights still on in the upper rooms. No doubt his wife was waiting up for him with a cup of cocoa. They’d been living in the small but cosy flat for the past thirty years now, and had their routine down pat. Grace did the early morning shift from seven a.m. until three p.m., and then he took over from then until eleven at night.
It had been a good job, and a good life, living in St Bede’s. The flat had been a bit cramped when they’d had the two boys, of course, but they had both long-since moved out. One to go to work in London, and the other to live in Australia.
He was looking forward to visiting the one in Australia next year.
It had turned into a cool but not particularly cold night, and Tom decided to do a quick ‘rounds’ of the college before heading upstairs. Just to re-check that the side gates leading into Little Clarendon Street and Walton Street were locked and make sure nothing was amiss after the big party. All the students had their own pass keys, of course, but sometimes vagrants or the homeless made their way into the grounds and curled up on or under the garden benches, and it was part of his ‘unofficial’ duties to do a bit of security work.
He flicked on his torch and set off, noting that a few lights were still on in Webster. Some students regularly burned the midnight oil, of course, and he paid no attention to this. There were similar lights on in the other two residences, Walton and Wolsey.
His torch beam turned the foliage lime-green as it passed over the rose gardens and herbaceous borders, and once, in one of the two college car parks, he accidentally kicked a discarded tin. Muttering, he picked it up and put it in one of the rubbish bins.
He checked the bench in the Fellows garden first, but it was free of anything other than a startled hedgehog, which scurried for cover under a bush as he swept the torch beam over it.
Above him, the weeping silver birches, famous to St Bede’s, sighed and swayed in an evening breeze. The porter turned and checked the Little Clarendon Street entrance, then retraced his steps.
He was passing Wolsey and looking towards the pretty Becket Arch, and so almost missed a strange shape at the base of the wall. Then he spotted it, and the porter quickly swung the torch back, then clicked his tongue in annoyance.
Sure enough, lying close to the wall, no doubt to keep out of the wind, lay the unmistakable shape of a human body. Face down, which was unusual, his head turned towards the wall.
‘All right, come on, Sir, you know you can’t sleep here,’ Tom said, habitually polite, and moving forward. He was already crouching down, and about to put his hand on the tramp’s shoulder to wake him up, when something stopped him. Something was out of place. Something was not quite right.
He couldn’t figure out at first what it was. Then he realised. The clothes. All the homeless that he occasionally saw on the streets of Oxford were dressed similarly—in layers of clothing, tatty and ill-fitting, and nearly always topped off with a waterproof raincoat or mackintosh. But this man was dressed in a suit. Black, or maybe dark blue by the look of it.
Tom Jenkins felt his mouth go dry and he slowly pulled his outstretched hand back.
‘Sir?’ he said again, loudly.
The body didn’t move.
Kneeling down now, Tom angled his torch down and around, trying to illuminate the man’s face—but it was not easy. Sparse white hair moved in the breeze and made Tom shiver.
He was dead. Tom just knew that he was. The body was not that of a young man either. Apart from the white hair, his skin was wrinkled. And Tom knew him. He knew that he was a Don. But not one that he saw around the college all that often, and certainly not one who lived in.
Should he move him? The old gent must have had a heart attack or something. Slowly he reached out and took the man’s wrist, but his skin was already cold and he didn’t even bother trying to find a pulse. He stood up slowly and looked around helplessly. He didn’t want to leave the body, but he had to get help. Trouble was—he didn’t want a student, perhaps one a little the worse for drink, stumbling over the old man and kicking up a fuss.
Tom Jenkins was as loyal as any other member of St Bede’s—and the college came first. Dignity for its Dons. Discretion from the staff. Above all, decorum. That was what St Bede’s stood for.
Tom, after a moment’s hesitation, took his coat off and lay it over the prone body, then walked rapidly towards Webster.
This was a job for Lord St John James, the college’s redoubtable Principal.
* * *
St John James, known to one and all simply as Sin Jun, wasn’t in bed. An ex-military man, he’d become used to rising early and retiring late. Besides, he was still buzzing after the party. Not only had a St Bede’s Fellow won the Prize, that gorgeous creature Marcheta had flirted and flattered him outrageously. He was still glowing from the memory of it, and was certainly in no mood to go to sleep.
So he was sitting contentedly in his study, reading an autobiography of Winston Churchill, when the tap came on his door. He was surprised, but didn’t show it. A quick glance at his watch told him it was nearly a quarter past eleven. Hardly a suitable time for visitors.
He was even more surprised when he opened his door to find the porter there.
‘Jenkins,�
�� he said crisply, but with no hint of impatience. Sin Jun was the kind of man who inspired confidence in almost everybody—be it a cocky first-year student, a humble scout, a long-standing Fellow or a lost tourist.
‘Sir,’ Jenkins said flatly. ‘I think you’d better come. I’ve found someone dead, lying outside Wolsey.’
Sin Jun blinked, then nodded. ‘Let me get a coat.’ He collected it on the way out and followed Jenkins without another word.
The porter took him to the spot, trained his torch on the body, and waited.
‘Your coat, is it?’ Sin Jun asked, nodding at the covered corpse, and Jenkins nodded.
‘Yes, sir. I thought it best to cover the gentleman up.’
Sin Jun said nothing, but removed the coat and handed it back to Jenkins, who didn’t quite like to put it back on again.
‘Lying at a funny angle, ain’t he?’ Sin Jun said, more to himself than anyone else, and stood back a little, stepping out on to the croquet lawn and peering up.
Wolsey was a three-storey stone building, with rows of high sash windows. On the top floor, he could see a white lace curtain being blown in, then out, of an open window. Which could be significant, or could mean precisely nothing. Sin Jun frowned and looked down again. It was hard to tell in the dark, but he could see no bloodstains. He crouched and very carefully pulled back on the man’s shoulder to see his face. He drew in his breath sharply.
‘It’s Sir Vivian Dalrymple,’ he said quietly.
Tom Jenkins sighed heavily. ‘That’s bad, Sir,’ he muttered, in massive understatement.
Sir Vivan had always been a well-liked man. Known tio have a first class brain, he’d also been approachable and charming. More or less retired now, of course. And getting on a bit. But still . . . Tom sighed heavily. This was no way to go.
‘Yes,’ Sin Jun acknowledged briefly. ‘Stay here. If any student stumbles by, send him to bed with a flea in his ear.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Is the lodge unlocked?’
‘No, Sir. You want the keys?’
‘Please.’ Sin Jun held out his hand for them, gave Sir Vivian a final, thoughtful look, and headed back to the lodge.
There he phoned first for an ambulance, and then, after a pause, looked up the number of the Thames Valley Police Headquarters in Kidlington. His old friend, Fishers, was the chap to speak to now. He could, of course, simply have dialled 999, but he didn’t want to do that. Things had to be handled quietly. Discreetly. That was the way things were done in Oxford.
Or at least, they were in St Bede’s.
* * *
Nesta was having a nightmare. She was running through the streets of Durham, a dark, cold, cobble-stoned landscape that she barely recognised. Rob was chasing her, swearing undying loyalty. She turned a corner and abruptly found herself in a pretty town square. It was now broad daylight, and a cafe had just opened for business. It was one of those that had tables and chairs spilling out onto the pavement, and sitting at one table was Sir Vivian. He was sipping a cup of coffee, the bright sunshine beaming down on his bent head.
She called to him but he didn’t hear her, or look up.
Behind her, Rob was gaining. He was waving her father’s papers in the air and accusing her of never having loved him. She ran towards Sir Vivian, calling to him again and again but still he didn’t look up. Neither, she noticed, did anyone else. It was as if she were invisible. She ran on, into a dark alley, and it was night time again. A few street lamps burned, casting ominous pools of murky light that only served to make the rest of the darkness seem all the more intense.
At the end of the alley stood a man.
Nesta couldn’t see who it was. He was in shadow—with the light illuminating just the plane of one cheek and the line of his jaw and nose. He looked solid. Powerful. Masculine.
She skidded to a halt, her heart thumping. Although she couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t, for instance, tell what colour they were, she knew he was watching her intently. Looking into her heart. Reading her soul. She wanted him to stop. But never to stop.
Behind her, she turned to see Rob fading away. Soon he was gone, as if he’d never existed.
She turned around again, half expecting the phantom stranger to be gone also, but he was still there. Although she’d never met him, and had no idea who he was, had never so much as heard his voice or touched his hand, he felt ten, twenty, a hundred times more real to her than Rob ever would.
Or ever had. ‘Who are you?’ she said.
The man dropped a piece of paper. It fluttered to the ground, and was picked up by a playful breeze that skittered it towards her. She bent down and picked it up, and began to unfold it. She knew what the message contained was the most important thing in the world.
She began to look down, got a fleeting impression of individual letters . . . and woke up. She sat up in bed, her heart pounding. She reached for the light and switched it on, her eyes going automatically to the clock. But it was not the middle of the night, as she’d expected it to be.
It wasn’t even yet midnight. Two things struck her at once. The first, for some reason, was the image of Sir Vivian, sitting in the bright daylight at the pretty cafe table, drinking coffee and not being able to see or hear her. He had seemed so far away.
And then, more urgently, the man in the shadows. Who was he? Nesta shook her head. It was only a dream. And easy, in a way, to interpret.
Rob disappearing was the most simple to explain of all. He was out of her life for good. And the fact that he’d been waving her father’s papers at her and accusing her of having more interest in them than in him was also child’s play for a psychology student. She did have other priorities in her life right now.
But the stranger was an enigma. The shadowy figure that she’d felt she’d known, or would know, for the rest of her life. Where had that feeling come from? And what did it mean?
If she’d been superstitious, she might have put it down to that old chestnut about women dreaming of their one true love. Hadn’t her grandmother on her mother’s side once told her that her own great-grandmother had had the second sight? It was all rubbish, of course. Appealing rubbish, but nothing to lose sleep over.
Nesta determinedly shut off the light and lay staring up at the ceiling. She found herself trying to recall the stranger’s face, but couldn’t. Annoyed, she tried to turn her mind to other things, only to think about the piece of paper he’d dropped for her, that the breeze had so obligingly brought right to her feet. Carrying a message that was so important.
If only she’d read it before she woke up. But the subconscious did things like that to you. It teased and tormented you, sometimes mercilessly.
Nesta turned over and thumped her pillow angrily.
This was the brave new millennium. Women married and divorced regularly. They could have surrogate children as surrogate mothers, have lesbian relationships, and rear children without the long-term presence of any man. Flit from relationship to relationship like a butterfly if they chose.
They certainly didn’t dream of their one true love anymore. It was stupid. Nesta determinedly closed her eyes.
And wondered if her dream lover would come back to her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Detective Inspector Lisle Jarvis rubbed a weary hand across his broad forehead and stifled a yawn. He’d had a hard day, and had climbed into bed at just gone nine o’clock, foolish enough to believe that he might actually be allowed to catch up on some much needed sleep.
It was now just gone midnight, and here he was, being driven to St Bede’s where a dead body awaited him in one of its quads. After being given the victim’s name, he’d been ordered by his Superintendent to investigate the matter quickly, thoroughly and quietly. His boss had gone on to say that it would most probably turn out to be a case of death by natural causes, but given the eminence of the victim and the institute in which he’d been found, he wanted a senior officer on the spot.
And Lisle was it, whether he
liked it or not.
The sergeant who was driving looked equally tired, but also reluctantly excited. Jim Neill, unlike Lisle, had not investigated many suspicious deaths before. (In the world of the police, any death was deemed ‘suspicious’ until proven otherwise.) Lisle could have told him to save his enthusiasm—however the case turned out, it meant a long, long night lay ahead of them, with probably very little reward at the end of it.
‘The college is just up ahead, Jim, but don’t turn off down the alley. I want the car park checked for any unknown vehicles. It’s a long shot, but one we’d better carry out, if only for form’s sake. Get some uniforms onto it. You’ll have to park out front,’ Lisle instructed quietly.
‘There’s double yellow lines on this part of the Woodstock Road, Sir,’ Jim pointed out prosaically.
‘Well, if we get a ticket, Jim, it’ll come out of your wages,’ Lisle said dryly. Then, at his sergeant’s aghast look, said quickly, ‘Joke, Jim. Joke.’
‘Sir.’
Jim, who’d worked with Lisle for over two years, still wasn’t quite sure how to take his superior officer. It was a problem a lot of the men and women at the local police station shared.
For Lisle Jarvis had a somewhat unusual background for a high flying, up-and-rising detective inspector.
Lisle, as everyone knew, had been raised in the rough area of Blackbird Leys, one of Oxford’s grimmest suburbs. Not only that, but as a juvenile, in common with all his friends, Lisle had had a record. Joy riding. Shoplifting. Petty vandalism.
And all before the age of fourteen.
And then it had all changed one afternoon, when he’d lifted some tape cassettes from his local branch of Woolworths. It had been done, as usual, on a dare from his mates. They’d hit the shop just the day before, and knew the floor walkers were bound to be alert, so they’d teased him that he wouldn’t be able to get away with it twice. And neither had he. One sharp-eyed off duty constable had seen to that.
One instant, the cocky thirteen year old Lisle had grabbed a handful of tapes (embarassingly, as it was to turn out, all Des O’Connor offerings) and the next instant, as he was headed for the door and his jeering, sniggering mates, he’d felt himself being lifted off the floor, his collar having been well and truly felt by the massive hands of one PC Vince Moreland.