A Matter of Trust

by Maxine Barry

  Vince had been a policeman for nearly thirty years on the afternoon that he’d collared the young tearaway.

  The rest, as the local force now knew, was history, and had developed into a kind of modern folklore. Simply put, Lisle had been ‘straightened out’ by a good, honest copper. But exactly how Vince had managed this minor miracle not even Lisle, to this day, was quite sure.

  Perhaps it had been a combination of his guilt and terror.

  The young Lisle had always known that his widowed mother worried her heart out over him, and even at the tender age of thirteen, he’d understood that she was terrified that he’d influence his younger brother, Davy, into a life of similar crime.

  And Vince, with his knowledge of Blackbird Leys families, had played on his guilt ruthlessly. Add to that the fact that Vince was built like a brick outhouse, and had hinted, without saying one word, that Lisle was due to get the hiding of his life if he erred again, and you had all the ingredients ready mixed to instil a rapid change of heart in any wayward schoolboy.

  Lisle couldn’t remember his father, who’d walked out on them when he was four, and then died a year later, drunk behind the wheel of a stolen car. So he’d never had the discipline he’d so badly needed, and had never before met a man who, instead of giving him a good hiding, had given him golden advice instead.

  For the next three years, Vince had become a surrogate father to him, before he died of a heart attack two months short of retiring from the force. And in those three years, against all the odds, Lisle had become a son for both Vince and his mother to be proud of. But it had not been easy.

  Years of truancy had left him barely literate, and his teachers at the hard-pressed, local rundown comprehensive school could have been forgiven for being suspicious of his sudden yen to learn. But they had not let him down. Extra hours of tuition, private reading and writing lessons, and all the encouragement they could give him had him passing his O-levels at sixteen, much to his own astonishment, and the delight of his mother and Vince.

  His juvenile record, according to the laws of the land, was wiped clean, since his crimes were committed before the age of fourteen. In due course he sat his A-levels and then, (unbelievable to many), joined the police force two days after his eighteenth birthday. By then, of course, he was anathema to all his old school friends, most of whom he’d since had to arrest for drink-driving, vandalism, gbh, burglary and other assorted crimes.

  It would have been a transformation impossible for most men. But Lisle Jarvis had never been like most men.

  Inevitably though, he still had problems, even to this day. It was hard for him to accept authority, for a start, and there were several ‘superior’ officers that he felt were anything but, and for whom he had no respect whatsoever, either for their non-existent brains or for their tactics. But, with a bit of teeth grinding, he’d managed to swallow his defiance and rise to the rank, at only thirty, of Detective Inspector. What’s more, he was tipped for promotion in the near future.

  Known as a bit of a maverick, but one who could play the game and—more importantly—constantly achieve good results, he held a unique place in both the rank and file, and with the powers that be.

  Now, feeling bone-weary and totally unaware of the kind of awe in which both his sergeant and most of the local nick held him, he yawned widely as Jim Neill pulled up the unmarked police Rover to a halt outside the main gates of St Bede’s.

  Lisle got out of the car and stood on the pavement, looking at the golden stone facade with a disgruntled expression on his face.

  Most of Oxford now slept, and there was no passing foot traffic at all; only a few cars cruising the night streets at a steady thirty miles an hour. A street lamp away to his left cast light down onto the pavement and across the plane of one of his cheeks, illuminating the hard line of his jaw. He looked solid, powerful and fundamentally masculine as he stood there, calling on his reserves of stamina and contemplating the case ahead of him.

  In the lodge of St Bede’s, lights shone from almost every window. The massive and ancient double oak doors, like those of most colleges, had a smaller door inset inside one of them, and this now opened. A tall, erect figure walked through it.

  For an instant, Lisle thought it must be the porter, who was bound to be expecting them. But as the man approached, stepping into the pool of light shining from the porter’s window, the policeman quickly changed his mind. For this man was dressed in a dark suit, and had a thick wave of white hair, a pair of piercing blue eyes, and a manner that fairly screamed ‘establishment’.

  ‘Good evening, Inspector. You are from the local constabulary, I take it?’

  The cut-glass vowels and upper class accents automatically set Lisle’s spine stiffening, and he forced himself to relax, with something of an effort. You might take the boy out of the gutter, but the gutter had a nasty habit of staying with the boy, Lisle thought, with a wry internal smile.

  Lisle took a swift breath and firmly held out his hand. ‘Detective Inspector Lisle Jarvis. Sergeant Neill. And you are . . .?’

  ‘Lord Roland St John James. The Principal.’

  Lisle hid a smile. Great. Now what, out of that whole lot, was he supposed to call him?

  ‘Well, er, Sir Roland,’ he hazarded with a confidence that concealed all hints of his unease, ‘perhaps you could fill me in on the events of tonight? I understand there’s been an unexplained death?’

  ‘That’s right. Our porter found the body of one of our Fellows lying near his residence.’

  ‘I hope the uniformed branch have already sealed off the area?’ Lisle asked sharply, but the older man nodded quickly.

  ‘Oh yes, yes indeed. Yellow police tape everywhere. Please, step this way.’

  Sin Jun led them through the gate and into the gloomy shadow of St Agatha Quad. To their right was the porters lodge and residence, to their left, the vast, ancient chapel, where world-famous choirs came to give concerts. Ahead were the rising walls of Webster, and, straight on, access to Wallace quad, with its war memorial and college clock. In the distance he could see a pretty stone arch, set in a dry-stone wall.

  As they walked across the noisy gravel of the first car park, the Principal was very much aware of several more lights coming on in Webster and the other residences.

  It was inevitable that the students would be awoken by all the activity, but he knew that a constable had been stationed by the body, and would turn back any curious undergraduates.

  Lisle gloomily took in all the trappings of an ancient Oxford College, and felt deeply uncomfortable.

  He was very much ‘town’, who had stumbled, very decidedly, into the territory of ‘gown’. His O-levels and few A-levels suddenly felt very paltry compared to the might of all this academe, and the sudden feeling he had of guilty inadequacy angered him. Especially when he knew that he’d done well with his life, given the circumstances.

  Damn it, if he wasn’t careful, he was going to get an inferiority complex about all of this. And wouldn’t that make his Superintendent laugh and choke on his cigar? Again, Lisle indulged an inner smile at his own expense.

  But although he managed to suppress all traces of these negative thoughts, the wealth, prestige, and academic worship oozing from these ancient walls made him itch all over. This was going to be a pig of a case. He just knew it. Shrugging off his pessimism, he sighed heavily.

  ‘The er . . . body . . . is just up ahead,’ Sin Jun said quietly, trying, and for the moment failing, to get a line on this big, tough-looking and unusually silent copper.

  Sin Jun had managed to get hold of Fishers, of course, who’d promised to put their best man on to it. So the Principal knew that DI Lisle Jarvis would soon get to the bottom of this affair. His old friend had also promised to handle the press, and generally keep a beady eye on how things progressed.

  So although Sin Jun had no doubt that this man was up to the job, something instinctively told him that if Fishers tried to rein in this subordinate, he was
going to be given very short shrift indeed. And it worried him, somewhat. Although Sin Jun could not quite put his finger on it, something about Sir Vivian’s death struck him as being not quite right.

  Unaware of the Principal’s unease, Lisle walked slowly towards the crime scene—if crime scene it was.

  He’d surmised (quite rightly, as it turned out) that this was most definitely an example of a powerful college applying a little pressure to his superiors.

  Why else assign a DI to a case that, on the face of it, might turn out to be nothing more than death due to natural causes?

  As the Principal led him through Becket Arch, Lisle saw that the uniformed branch, called in a good half hour before he himself had been roused out of bed, had already set up a large set of lights. He was glad to note that they’d been careful not to trample all over the scene.

  But the lights meant that the three men now looked down at a grimly surreal scene. For Sir Vivian Dalrymple now lay like a spotlighted piece of macabre art, a grisly study in black and silver, lying awkwardly on a grassy green carpet.

  Lisle carefully approached, looking at the ground around the body. ‘People have been walking around here,’ he said flatly.

  Sin Jun, in spite of himself, was impressed. ‘I dare say that would be Tom Jenkins, the porter. He discovered the body, and of course, checked to see if, well, he could do anything.’

  Lisle looked at him quickly. ‘Does he usually do a nightly patrol?’

  Sin Jun blinked. ‘I have no idea. You’ll have to ask him that yourself.’

  Lisle sighed. ‘So I will. I take it a doctor has seen him, or is on the way?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, one is due. Fishers said he’d send someone,’ Sin Jun clarified, not missing the quick, hard, and sardonically knowing look that Lisle gave him.

  ‘You’re a friend of Chief Constable Fishers Sir?’ he asked, at last, with deceptive lightness.

  Sin Jun, most unusually, felt as if he’d been wrong-footed. He cleared his throat loudly. ‘Yes. A great pal. Golf, you know,’ he added. What was it about this policeman that made him feel so uncomfortable?

  ‘You must understand, er, Inspector Jarvis, that the college can’t afford any, well, adverse gossip. So naturally, when we found poor Sir Vivian this way . . .’ He trailed off helplessly.

  Lisle Jarvis nodded. ‘Yes, Sir. Quite so,’ he said, his voice flat but somehow managing to sound sardonic at the same time.

  Sin Jun almost flushed. But, in spite of the man making him feel like a first class heel, shamelessly playing the old public school tie game, his estimation of the policeman skyrocketed.

  After all, it was not many men, Sin Jun thought, who can put the wind up me!

  ‘And on tonight of all nights too,’ Sin Jun sighed, and when Lisle looked at him sharply, explained about the Dinner, and the Kendall Prize.

  Lisle sighed. Great. That meant they had fifty or more guests to contend with, he thought, disgruntled. Just what he needed!

  ‘All the guests have long since departed, I take it?’ he asked flatly.

  ‘Yes of course. We had no idea anything was wrong, you see.’

  Lisle nodded again. ‘I take it the college gates are locked at a certain time?’ he pressed on with the routine questioning doggedly.

  ‘Yes, Inspector. But Tom Jenkins, the porter, is the best man to talk to about the specifics of that. I know the postern gates and everything else gets locked at ten—but he’ll be able to tell you if anything had been amiss tonight. But surely . . . I mean, Sir Vivian was in his seventies, and I know for a fact that he had heart trouble. This is going to turn out to be a simple case of heart failure, don’t you think?’ Sin Jun asked quickly.

  Lisle looked at him sharply. Was he imagining it, or did the Principal sound a little too hopeful just then?

  Lisle had summed up Sin Jun very rapidly. He already had him pegged as an old soldier, one whom the college had elected as their Principal in the hope of strong leadership and common-sense practicality. He was not, Lisle felt sure, a man to make mountains out of molehills, or indulge in hysterics. So if something about this death worried him, Lisle knew he should be worried too.

  On the other hand, he might just be so tired he was reading things into nothing.

  ‘Well, we won’t know for sure about that until after the doctor has had his say, will we sir?’ he answered Sin Jun’s question with deliberate pragmatism. ‘And a post mortem will tell us for sure, one way or another.’

  Sin Jun sighed. ‘I was hoping that wouldn’t prove necessary,’ Sin Jun said sadly. ‘His wife is in hospital, and I had hoped to spare her that.’

  Lisle sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Sir Roland. But it’s not up to me, and I think the coroner will almost certainly ask for some kind of examination to be carried out.’ He hesitated for a moment, and looked down at the back of his hand thoughtfully. ‘Especially if there should prove to be any signs of trauma on the body,’ he added smoothly, and quickly looked up.

  It was a technique he’d used often in the past, when questioning witnesses. When they thought you weren’t looking at them, Lisle had often caught expressions on their faces that they’d have given anything to hide.

  The Principal’s face, however, was simply blank.

  ‘Trauma?’ Sin Jun echoed questioningly.

  ‘From a fall. At the moment it’s too dark to see, and we can’t examine the body properly until it’s been seen by a medical man. So we have no idea what injuries Sir Vivian may have sustained. And you had noticed there’s a window open up above, hadn’t you, Sir?’ Lisle asked calmly.

  Sin Jun actually flushed, and hoped the darkness would hide it. ‘Yes. I had, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Did Sir Vivian, in fact, have rooms in this building?’ Lisle pressed, unaware that Jim Neill was listening avidly, an open look of admiration on his face.

  Lisle had certainly caught the old feller napping there!

  ‘Wolsey—this building is named after the famous cardinal. And yes, he did. On the third floor,’ Sin Jun, having been caught out once, now felt the need to over-compensate. ‘When we heard of his heart trouble, we were going to move his rooms to the ground floor, but he was more or less retired, and hardly ever came to his rooms here, so he insisted that we were not to bother. I’d hate to think that climbing the flights of stairs brought on an attack,’ Sin Jun said, perfectly genuinely. ‘But I suppose it might have been like that. If he’d felt breathless, he’d almost certainly have gone to the window to get some air. Perhaps he leaned forward to breathe deeply, had a dizzy spell and fell. But I hope not.’

  Lisle ignored all this very convenient guesswork, and glanced around. So far, no inquisitive student had appeared on the scene, and the grounds remained deserted. But they wouldn’t have been so earlier on.

  ‘Did anyone see him come in, do you know?’ he asked. ‘Did he attend this party of yours?’

  ‘Oh he must have done. He was certainly invited, and I can’t think what else he’d be doing in College otherwise. But I don’t remember talking to him—but then, I was mostly taken up with the guest of honour. A famous fashion model, and all that,’ Sin Jun said, realising he was suddenly waffling, and lapsing into an embarrassed silence.

  ‘I don’t think we need to go into all of that at the moment, Sir,’ Lisle said, hiding a smile.

  Sin Jun could appreciate the economy of the inspector’s questioning, and even admire the ruthlessness of his reasoning. And under any other circumstances, he’d be gratified and fascinated with the DI’s performance. As it was, he shuffled uncomfortably under the younger man’s gimlet eye.

  Lisle sighed. Until the doctor had been and gone it was useless even speculating on what might have happened to the victim. ‘When was the body discovered exactly?’ he asked instead. ‘And can I just get you to confirm for me officially that the deceased is in fact Sir Vivian Dalrymple?’

  His lips twisted. So many Lords, and Sirs, and learned Fellows. Give him a straight forward
crime with normal, everyday working class people any day! Lisle glanced up, saw the look of misery on the Principal’s face, and felt instantly guilty.

  ‘Yes, Inspector, it’s definitely Sir Vivian. He was a very well liked man. I found him charming. His wife, as I believe I already told you, is in hospital at the moment. I don’t know how I’m going to tell her about this.’

  Lisle put the notebook away, feeling like a right bastard. None of it showed on his face, however. ‘Where is this Tom Jenkins?’ he asked instead.

  ‘He’s with his wife in the lodge. Shall I go and get him?’

  ‘I think I’ll follow you there, if you don’t mind. Jim, you stay here with the body. The doc’s on his way—I want to know straight away if he has any preliminary guesses as to cause of death for us.’

  After all, they must dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s for the Chief Constable, mustn’t they?

  ‘Sir,’ Jim nodded, and took up a self-important stance beside the body. Lisle nodded to several of the uniformed constables, standing about the quad at strategic points as he passed them. Their quiet and deferential, ‘Sir,’ followed the two men as they walked back towards Becket Arch through the moonlit gardens.

  Lisle glanced at the rose gardens, the croquet lawn with its hoops and elegance, the pond and with its expensive fish, and remembered, when all was said and done, that the people living here were just that.

  People, like anyone else. People, like him.

  Tom Jenkins opened the door within a few seconds of their knocking, and nodded at Sin Jun before beckoning them in, turning interested and questioning eyes towards Lisle.

  ‘Principal,’ Tom said, and Lisle wondered if calling the Principal ‘Sir Roland’ had been some sort of social gaffe, then reflected tiredly that he really didn’t give a damn.

  ‘Tom, this is Detective Inspector Jarvis. Inspector, this is Tom Jenkins, our porter.’