And was any of it adding to the number of solved crimes?
The Chief’s “Reach Out!” PR campaign continued apace, the Chief wending her way through various stupefying talking points, pausing for emphasis only, it seemed, when she wished to share an insight of spectacular dullness. She remained undaunted by the fact that sending the police door to door in some of the worst neighborhoods in Cambridgeshire had netted them nothing but verbal abuse and several bites requiring stitches from a poodle of peculiarly vicious disposition in Histon. One unfortunate Constable had had the contents of a dustbin emptied on his head from the upper-story window of a rooming house. He was lucky—in another age, it would have been a chamber pot. The dustbin offender remained at large, but for every one captured, it was felt, another would soon grow to take his place. St. Just thought all the reactions perfectly justified, including the poodle’s. As one community member had been heard to exclaim, nicely capturing the prevailing philosophy, the very Zeitgeist, as it were: “If we want the bloody police we’ll ring for the bloody police.”
Since the meeting—lecture, rather—had been planned to run even longer than usual, the Chief Constable had had catered in for the delectation of her team large trays of what he was sure she would call canapés but St. Just would call rabbit food. Thus it was that once he and the rest of her Reach Out! team had finally been freed for the night, he decided to stop on his way home at the Three Jolly Butchers for a leisurely meal and a pint. The pub wasn’t crowded, and he easily secured a wooden table to himself near the Inglenook fireplace. He had already placed his order for one of his favorites, the pan-fried pork medallions with bubble and squeak. Looking about now at the low, beamed ceilings, he thought he should bring Portia here soon, as the food was as excellent as the atmosphere. That he had not done so yet was probably because he equated the place with his work, and he struggled, as did most of his colleagues, to draw a firm line between the personal and the official. Events would soon prove this was nearly impossible. He had no sooner been served than his mobile phone vibrated, the surprise jolt sending his fork flying through the air. Blast the thing. He unhooked the device from his belt and looked with apoplectic disbelief at the number. It couldn’t be, but it was. The Chief herself, reaching out. Sod it. He was supposed to be off duty. He took the call outside.
“St. Mike’s. Yes’m, I certainly know it. A woman. Strangulation, you think. Good God. The University Constabulary…Yes, of course. Quite outside their brief. I’ll give Sergeant Fear a ring and we’ll be right over.”
Ringing off, he punched in the number to Fear’s house, cursing the late hour. His right-hand man had taken a short furlough, but needs must. Why did murder always seem to happen after dark? But he knew the answer. “Under cloak of darkness” was a cliché for good reason. Nighttime, when the good and the just were tucked safely before the telly in their homes, no doubt watching a crime show—that was the time the predator went on the move.
–––
Someone picked up the receiver on the first ring, but there was dead silence at the other end.
“Emma?” St. Just guessed. “Is that you, Emma?” Silence. Emma was Fear’s four-year-old. Four going on thirty-five. What on earth could she be doing up so late?
“Emma, may I speak to your …” What would she call him? “Your daddy, please?” Silence. Thinking he just wasn’t using the right vocabulary, he tried again. “Your dadda?” No. “Your Pops? Poppy?” He was running out of options, and he had a murder to investigate. “Your father, please, Emma?”
“Who is that, Emma?” St. Just heard Sergeant Fear call as if from a great height, where no doubt he was, from Emma’s perspective.
“It’s Inspector St. Just.” Her slight lisp rendered this as, “Ith Inthpector Thaint Justh.” He felt his heart melt.
“Bye-bye, Emma,” said St. Just softly.
“Bye!” yelled Emma, loud enough to pierce an eardrum.
There were sounds of a minor scuffle, and Sergeant Fear came on the line.
“Sorry, Sir. Emma hasn’t quite found her volume control yet.”
“Just the on-and-off switch, I take it.”
He filled his sergeant in on as much of the situation as he knew, concluding, “Someone called the CU Constabulary, who naturally called us in.” The Cambridge University Constabulary was a small, non-Home Office force that was most often called upon to deal with crowd control and internal university matters. Murder in a college setting was rare to the point of being unheard of. Quite naturally, the University had called in the Cambridgeshire Constabulary.
St. Just quickly settled his tab with the landlord, who was getting used to these abrupt departures. He offered to package up the meal but, reluctantly, St. Just declined. As these things went, time for the next good meal was hours or days away, and he’d have to exist on the Chief’s dainty offerings for a while.
Travelling at a rapid but measured pace along the A14, he arrived at St. Michael’s College within minutes of Sergeant Fear, who stood waiting for him at the entrance. Already parked beside Fear’s car in a small lot at the front of the college were the SOCO van and Malenfant’s red Daimler.
The two men—St. Just tall, broad, and middle-aged; his sergeant tall, with a youthful gangliness—strode towards the college, their footsteps ringing out against the cobblestones, to the massive wooden double gates, built to withstand the sieges of earlier centuries. They stepped through the inner door cut into the gate for pedestrians. After showing their warrant cards to a shaken Head Porter, who presided from within an intricately carved neo-Gothic cage at the college entrance, they were shown by his assistant the way to the Master’s study.
“Frightful business, this,” said the Master. He had seen their approach and walked briskly across the first court to greet them, hand out in practiced greeting. They might have been dignitaries come to plant a tree or open a new building. But releasing the handshake, the Master began wringing his own hands distractedly, betraying his anguish at having a corpse on the premises. St. Just had the distinct feeling that the corpse wasn’t nearly as worrying as its location: hard by the college boathouse, according to the Chief Constable. The Master confirmed this impression with his next sentence.
“To have this happen this weekend, of all weekends,” he said. “And here.” He sighed deeply, adding in aggrieved tones, “Why couldn’t it have been Jesus?”
St. Just felt Sergeant Fear stiffen beside him in alarm: Were they dealing with a religious mania of some sort? But St. Just, familiar with some of St. Mike’s history, assumed the Master meant the nearby Jesus College. It was well known there was strong feeling between the two rivals. Something to do with one of the boat races held between the wars—allegations of sabotage resulting in wounded feelings, hurled insults, and umbrage taken—all the usual. The St. Michael’s boat had sunk, if memory served, giving all aboard a good and embarrassing dunking. Such memories ran long and deep in Cambridge.
“I doubt there would be a good time, when you think about it, Sir?” said St. Just. “Or a good place?”
The Master thought for a moment and then said, “No, no, I suppose not.”
But he didn’t look convinced. How much better if Jesus College were going to be splashed all over the newspapers as a haven for murderers and cutthroats. Applications to St. Michael’s would be down next year because of this, no question about it. The students wouldn’t mind—they’d love it, in fact, the ghoulish little cretins—but their parents … Really, it was most distressing. He voiced the last thought aloud.
“I can’t begin to tell you how deeply distressing this is. It was our alumni weekend, you see. Well, that’s certainly ruined, for a start,” he fumed huffily. He might have been a vicar’s wife complaining about low participation in the Bring and Buy.
St. Just, watching him, thought he had the kind of face designed for a periwig—the long, high-arched nose, the sullen set of the full but bloodless lips. But St. Just nodded, not without sympathy. It was definitely a
sticky wicket: deuced hard to explain to the old members how standards had slipped this far since their day.
“I quite understand your distress,” he said. “Now, we will need to talk with you at some length, but for the moment, if you would lead us to where the body was found …”
This set him off again.
“Body,” gasped the Master. “A body at St. Michael’s.” The man looked to be genuinely in a state of shock, his narrow face drained to a faint gray in the artificial light of the court.
“Sir,” said St. Just firmly. “If you wouldn’t mind. Time is of the essence in these matters.”
The man seemed to gather his wits through an effort of will. His mouth gathered into a puckered twist, he stolidly led them across the close-cropped grass towards the river, the jaunty bounce in his step as he’d walked over to meet the policemen now completely subdued.
SOCO had already established a beachhead. The body of Lexy Laurant remained in situ, hidden by a crime scene tent that was illuminated to an unearthly glare by arc lamps. It was a scene that had all the otherworldly qualities of a low-budget outdoor film set, complete with space aliens—SOCO—pacing the area in a methodical, robot-like search for evidence, wearing booties just a shade away from being Cambridge blue. Two constables conferred to one side of the tent, their heads close together, talking quietly, as if not wishing to disturb the newly dead. The air was laden with the scents of summer and the murmurs of the men; the gentle lapping of the river could just be heard behind the muted silence. The river, regardless and apart, wended its slow, sinuous way towards the River Ouse, which in turn would travel forty miles to meet the North Sea.
A low, light mist was caught in a glimmering haze by the lamps, and lay like a light scarf on the river; no moon was visible in the night sky. As St. Just and his sergeant approached, the air was rent like intermittent lightning by the flash from the stills photographer’s camera. Spectators—the staff and visiting members of the college—had long been herded back inside the college by one of the local constables sent to help secure the scene.
St. Just greeted Dr. Malenfant as he emerged from the tent and asked, “Time of death?”
Malenfant gazed laconically at his old friend for a long moment before speaking.
“Always the same with you, isn’t it,” he said, removing his latex gloves with a fastidious Snap! Snap! “No matter how long since we’ve seen each other. Just, ‘Time of death?’ he wants to know.” Malenfant, despite his years in England, remained thoroughly French in manner and habit, the more so when agitated. “You may have observed,” he continued, “that my holiday at present lacks certain…amenities. For one thing, it is not taking place in France. Puzzlingly, I remain here, in my summer holiday costume, miles from any beach.”
St. Just imagined Malenfant, under his protective clothing, was wearing one of those blousy shirts the French seemed to go in for—those shirts that always made him think of old men playing a game of boules—and striped espadrilles on his feet.
“Why, you may ask?” Malenfant was now in full flow. He wore the kind of old-fashioned wire-rimmed glasses that have to be looped to one’s ears. He unlooped them now, and paused to slick back his dark hair. “I appreciate your asking. My estimable colleague—my so-called replacement—has been struck down by a summer cold. I am told it is of amazing intensity, this grippe. He would have me believe it borders on pneumonia leading to an early, painful, and slow death. Pah. Between nine-sixteen and nine-fifty.”
St. Just judged, correctly, that Malenfant had at last arrived at the answer to the original question.
“That’s remarkable precise, even for someone of your gifts,” said St. Just mildly.
“She was seen alive at around nine-fifteen. They had a formal dinner and it adjourned then. She was found at nine-fifty by some kid in a boat, so I am told.” Malenfant rendered the word as keed. It was a true barometer of his distress when he allowed his flawless English to slip. He pointed to where Sebastian had abandoned the scull. “So you see, you don’t really need me at all for time of death. I won’t be able to get you a better estimate even after the autopsy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. You’ll have some preliminary results tomorrow and unless my colleague experiences a miraculous recovery, I will be around to answer your questions. She’s been manually strangled, to answer your next question, by a right-handed killer. Stunned first, by someone wielding the scull found by her body, no doubt. No rope, no rape. Bonne nuit.”
Poor Malenfant, thought St. Just. The man was a genius, but seldom was anyone so little suited by temperament to the unpredictable demands of his job. Meals, holidays, family occasions—all were sacrificed, routinely but unpredictably, on the altar of the homicide investigation. From no one else would St. Just have tolerated such curtness with equanimity, but Malenfant’s written report would, he knew, be a model of over-compensating thoroughness and accuracy—once the man had gotten a grip on himself.
He also knew Malenfant had what he called a mistress in France to whom he longed to return. She would more rightly be called a girlfriend, as Malenfant was not married, but he clung to the fifties noir term as much more seductive, as having that certain je ne sais quoi with which “girlfriend” could not begin to compete. In his own way, the otherwise gloomy Malenfant was a bon vivant who happened to be a top-flight pathologist. Wine, women, song, food—these were things, St. Just knew, to which Malenfant was passionately devoted, although duty always won out. St. Just had asked him once why he continued to do the job he did. He had looked at the policeman as if he were mad. “So I am reminded to live, of course,” he had replied.
“One question, Malenfant, before you go,” said St. Just.
Malenfant, sighing theatrically, turned slowly back to face him. “Isn’t there always?”
“Could a woman have done this?”
“Do you mean is a woman capable psychologically of choking someone to death? If you have to ask that, it is time for you to broaden your acquaintance with the fairer sex. If you mean physically, which I assume you do …” Malenfant reflected, then said, “Given the small physique of the victim, yes. A rather determined woman … but then, by definition, a strangler is determined. There are far simpler ways to kill someone. But given that the victim was almost certainly stunned, then strangled, it would be an easy enough job for anyone, man or woman. This is why accidental asphyxiation during sex games is such a recurring feature of my professional life—it doesn’t take all that much time or strength and before the person realizes too much strength has been applied—poof! A minute or two’s compression of the carotid arteries will do it. By the way, I’m certain we’ll find your killer wore gloves.”
Here Malenfant studied his own slender hands, with their long, elegant fingers—a pianist’s hands. St. Just likewise looked at those hands, whose job it was to plunge into a victim’s body and … well. The mind recoiled. Although both men served the same cause of bringing the guilty to justice, often in unpleasant ways, he would take his job over Malenfant’s any day.
“Yes, it could have been a man or a woman. Take a little peek for yourself; just don’t go inside the tent just yet. We’ll let forensics do their work, shall we?—they might have more to add. Once again, I must bid you gentlemen bonne nuit.”
To his retreating back, Sergeant Fear murmured, “I always think he’s rather like an undertaker.”
“A très chic undertaker,” agreed St. Just.
They walked over to the tented entrance. The body was already in a bag, ready for transport. St. Just motioned to one of the attendants, who unzipped the bag to reveal the victim’s face. A woman who had been beautiful, then. Blonde and in her thirties, maybe early forties, with regular, pretty features distorted by a mask of fear. Or was it surprise? St. Just felt he recognized her from somewhere. The artificial light caught the diamonds in her earlobes and the gold at her neck, setting them aglitter like the jewels on a pharaoh’s coffin.
One of the SOCO team approached St. Jus
t and Sergeant Fear.
“Her evening bag was found near the body, Sir. Well, we assume it was hers. We’re taking it to the lab for a closer look for prints. I’ve written out a list of the contents—nothing out of the ordinary though.” He handed him the list.
St. Just asked Fear, “At what distance are we from the college proper, would you say? A five-minute walk?”
“Less. It took us about three minutes, but we were in no particular hurry.”
St. Just nodded. He looked up and about him, taking in the scene. Across the river, the lights of one of St. Mike’s oldest and largest foes, Jesus College, glared balefully, as if in retaliation for the SOCO lamps. There once had been a bridge joining the colleges but an early Master of St. Mike’s, goaded beyond the limits of his patience, had literally had it burned down during an ongoing feud over access rights. There was also, St. Just noted, no footpath.
“Have someone find this young man who discovered her body—let him know he’s to remain available to us. We’ll need to decide the batting order for talking to everyone.”
The Master had been hovering some distance away from the crime scene. As the two men approached, having overheard them he said, “You mean Sebastian Burrows. The young man. He’s inside with the others. I’ve asked them all to wait up for you in the Senior Combination Room. Was that all right?”
“That was precisely fine. Let me have a further word with you first, Master. In your study, perhaps?”
GETTING TO KNOW YOU
He sent the Master on ahead, having arranged that they would meet him in his study in a few minutes. St. Just exchanged a few words with one of the constables, then he and Sergeant Fear headed towards the college proper. They ran into Portia at the foot of the main staircase. She looked as if she’d been waiting for St. Just, as no doubt she had.
St. Just nodded to Sergeant Fear, indicating he should wait for him with the Master, then turned to her. She was wearing what he knew was her standard summer work outfit: cropped black yoga pants and a matching sleeveless top. She was looking even more delectable than in his imaginings. But first things first.
Death at the Alma Mater Page 7