Dry Bones

by Sally Spencer

  ‘Exactly. For a while, I expected the bursar to have the vent re-done, now there were better men around to do it – but he wasn’t one for spending money, so I wasn’t entirely amazed when he didn’t.’

  ‘So you noticed it, but you didn’t report it because you thought it was an official piece of work, authorised while you were away, which had been badly finished?’

  ‘That’s what I’m saying.’

  ‘But Mr Gough would have known about the work that been authorised in that cellar, so when he noticed the botched job, why didn’t he report it?’ Even as I ask the question, I’m holding up my hands, ready to ward off a verbal attack, and when one doesn’t come, I add, ‘I’m not trying to fit him up for it, Mr Jenkins – really I’m not. I just think that it’s curious.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t notice it,’ Mr Jenkins says. ‘That vent is in the darkest part of that particular cellar, which is probably why the murderer chose it, and Mr Gough wouldn’t have carried out the same detailed inspection I did, because he’d been head porter for a long time, and he already knew every brick and stone.’

  It would be really convenient if the murderer did turn out to be Mr Gough, I think to myself.

  And the circumstantial evidence does seem to be pointing in his direction.

  Fact One: He is likely to have been the only man on the scene when both the murders occurred.

  Fact Two: Even given Mr Jenkins’ point that Gough couldn’t be in the college all the time, it is hard to see how anyone could knock down part of the medieval air vent, cram his victim inside, and then rebuild the air vent, all within the limited period when the head porter was absent, which would surely suggest that he was at least complicit.

  But unmasking the killer – and if it was Gough, then producing a rock-solid argument is almost impossible now that he’s dead – is not the job I was hired to do. What Charlie wants to know is the names of the victims, and I seem to be no closer to that now than I’ve ever been.

  ‘You wouldn’t have any idea who the dead men in the air vent were, have you, Mr Jenkins?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ the head porter replies, ‘I haven’t.’

  I was afraid he’d say that.

  FOUR

  2 October 1943

  Charlie Swift stood on the doorstep of St Luke’s senior common room, gazing out into the night at the historic city of Oxford. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he would have been gazing at the city – its majestic domes and dreaming spires – if those domes and spires had been at all visible. But they weren’t visible, because there had been a government-imposed night-time blackout since the autumn of 1939, and all he could actually see (as there wasn’t any moon that night) was the darkness. Still, he mused, as with so many things in life, it was nice to know they were there, even if – at that particular moment or under those particular conditions – you couldn’t take advantage of them yourself.

  He had only been a baby when the last war had been declared. Everybody – from the government and press magnates at the top, right down to the humblest labourer and his wife in the lowliest village in England – had believed that that conflict was nothing less than ‘the War to End All Wars.’

  But it hadn’t been, had it? Charlie thought.

  In the light of recent events, it was clear that it had been no more than a dress rehearsal for this war – though, granted, it had been a particularly bloody one.

  Although it had been waged during his infancy, he knew all about the First World War. His father, the Old Lord, had made certain of that by going to endless pains to fill him on all the details (whether he wanted those details or not!)

  ‘That war swallowed up working men the way a meat grinder swallows up meat, Charles,’ Lord Roderick had told him. ‘I stopped the army taking away the men working on our farms – got onto my friends in the government and pointed out that they were necessary for war-time food production – but there was nothing I could do about the rest of the staff. We were left with only one gamekeeper – one – and people called him Blind Jack, so you can guess just how effective he was. With him in charge, the poachers could have a heyday, but fortunately most of them were in the army, too.’

  ‘Then obviously, the poachers had no influence with the government,’ Charles had said.

  ‘Well, of course they had no influence with the government – they were poachers,’ the Old Lord had replied, missing the point. ‘There were the gardeners, too. The only ones I was allowed to keep were three old men who were too creaky to wield a hoe, let alone a bayonet. And as for the footmen and grooms – don’t even ask me about them. It was a nightmare.’

  The Old Lord had painted a convincing picture of heartless government officials, like slavers of yore, swooping down on the estate and dragging away the helpless men, whilst their distraught wives beat their bosoms in agony, and their unhappy children begged the slavers not to take their daddies away.

  It hadn’t been like that at all, of course. Between August 4th and September 12th 1914, four hundred and seventy-eight thousand, eight hundred and ninety-three men had volunteered to join the army, and by the time conscription was introduced in January 1916, the figure had risen to two million, four hundred and sixty-six thousand, seven hundred and nineteen – among them, Charlie was more than willing to wager, all those gardeners, footmen and grooms who his father claimed the government had stolen.

  This time, it was different. This time, every man between the ages of twenty and forty-one (and not involved in a reserved occupation like coal mining) would be required to fight eventually, but unlike the last war, they weren’t all leaving their homes in a sudden flood to be washed up on the shores of France a few days later. Rather, they were being drawn away in slow streams to join disparate units which would eventually all coalesce when the time came to invade Europe.

  Charlie opened the Senior Common Room door for just a second, allowing so little light to spill out into the darkness that it would have taken a very alert German pilot or navigator to spot it.

  Once inside, he looked around him. There was the dean, there was the bursar, and there were three young commoners. It was a long-standing tradition in St Luke’s that on Thursday nights, the bursar and the dean would invite several undergraduates for drinks (nature unspecified on the invitation, but usually a very dry sherry, produced exclusively for the college at one of the better bodegas in Jerez de la Frontera), and thence to a lavish dinner at the high table.

  The three selected for the honour on Thursday were Thomas Hadley, Gideon Trollop and James Makepeace. The trio shared a common background. They were of similar build (athletic but stocky) and similar colouring (English pale, with a slightly weather-beaten overlay, as a result of days spent out on the grouse moors). It would have been unfair to call them a clique – or even worse, a tribe – because although they had all attended Eton, and now were all studying at St Luke’s, they had been in different houses at Eton (and no two houses had the same ethos, as they would be at pains to tell you) and now lived on different staircases in the college (where the ethos was generally the same, but the plumbing varied).

  Yet it would equally be a mistake to fail to spot the distinct differences which swam quietly through their sea of conformity, thought Charlie Swift who, as a junior lecturer in English, had been invited along because – he assumed – the dean and the bursar, being old out-of-touch conservatives, felt they needed some kind of bridge between them and Hadley, Trollop and Makepeace, who represented young, out-of-touch conservatism.

  Yes, Charlie thought, examining them again, it would certainly be a mistake to regard them as pretty-much-of-a-muchness – for while they had all been through a system designed to turn them not just into English gentlemen but into identical, interchangeable English gentlemen, there were still differences which could be spotted by a confirmed cynic who happened to be an Old Etonian himself.

  Hadley, for example, was one of life’s optimists – the sort of chap who, when his rugby team was thirty-five
points down at half time (and to a clearly superior team), could still believe – and get the other members of his side to believe – that victory was possible.

  Trollop, on the other hand, would assume they were heading for a defeat the moment he arrived at the venue and saw the size of the oppositions’ full-back – and would, furthermore, gain a morbid satisfaction from such knowledge.

  And Makepeace? Makepeace was the chap who would always think that victory was in his grasp, if only he could devise a clever (and undetectable) way of cheating. He was also – and Charles was virtually certain of this – a homosexual. So, to sum him up – he was a rogue, there was no doubt about that, but hopefully, he would turn out to be a loveable rogue (which was to say, fun to take to bed).

  It was the dean who was doing most of the talking over sherry – that was the way it normally went, the dean talked and you listened – and what he was talking about was the effects of the last war.

  ‘In many ways, the Germans could be said to have won, because they seriously damaged the way of life we had so come to cherish. Believe me when I say this, it was a different world after 1918.’

  ‘This is all most interesting, sir. In what way was it different?’ asked James Makepeace. So the man was a bit of a crawler, too, Charlie Swift noted – but he would only crawl as long as he could see it was to his advantage.

  ‘In what way was it different?’ the dean replied. ‘It was different in that so many of our young men died,’

  ‘Yes, they did,’ the bursar said, sounding genuinely regretful, because he truly hated waste, whether it was butter squandered at the refectory table or young men’s blood squandered on the battlefield. ‘They were slaughtered like cattle. There’s no other way to describe it. At one point, the life expectancy of a young officer was little more than a week.’

  ‘Yes, a great number of them never came back,’ the dean agreed, and though the bursar was supporting his argument, his face showed his displeasure at being interrupted in his flow. ‘And so, after the war, with much of the best of our young manhood dead, we were forced to accept students who fell far below the gentlemanly standards we had come to expect.’

  The dean sounded just like his father could, though with much less justification, Charlie Swift thought. He wondered why it was that those with the least reason to be snobbish were often the most snobbish of all – then realised he had answered his own question.

  ‘When I talk about falling below the gentlemanly standard, I don’t mean you men, of course,’ the dean continued. ‘We’re more than delighted to have chaps like you – but I think we all know the kind of chancers and interlopers that I’m referring to.’

  ‘He’s referring to the sons of brewers, builders, solicitors, civic engineers, surgeons and people of that ilk,’ Charlie Swift said, just to stir matters up.

  ‘I don’t think there’s any need to be as specific as that, Lord Charles,’ the dean said. He turned his attention back to his guests of the evening. ‘How old are you three young men?’

  ‘We’re all nineteen, sir,’ Hadley said.

  ‘Then I expect you’ll all be called up soon.’

  ‘Yes, sir, we were all in the Officer Training Corps at school, and we’re all as keen as mustard to do our bit in the armed forces.’

  ‘I’m expecting to be called up soon, too,’ Charlie Swift said, ‘and I’m also as keen as mustard.’

  ‘You, Charles?’ the dean asked, amazed.

  ‘Me,’ Swift confirmed.

  ‘I should have thought that, as the only son of a grandee of England, you’d have found it quite easy to obtain an exemption.’

  ‘Yes, I think I probably would have,’ Charlie Swift replied, ‘but I chose not to.’

  The dean considered the prospect for a moment, then said, ‘Well, I expect an organised chap like you will be a very useful addition to one of the ministries of supply.’

  You’ve finally worked out that I’m a homo, haven’t you, you snobbish, brandy-soaked old bastard? Swift thought. And if I am a homo, then that means, at least in your mind, that I’d be bloody useless as a soldier.

  ‘I’m hoping to avoid working in a ministry,’ he said aloud. ‘What I’ve actually asked for is a place in one of the front-line regiments – and given that two of my uncles are generals, I think my request is likely to be granted.’

  ‘Really!’ the dean exclaimed.

  ‘Why the surprise?’ Charlie asked. ‘Do you think that because of what I am, I would be incapable of killing if the need arose?’

  The dean, realising he had been driven into a verbal corner, reddened. ‘I don’t … I mean to say …’ he began.

  ‘Is it perhaps because I’m so sensitive – maybe even oversensitive – that you don’t believe I could ever be a rough, tough soldier?’ Charlie Swift ploughed on relentlessly.

  ‘Really, Lord Charles, this is neither the time nor the place …’ the dean spluttered.

  ‘Because there must surely have been other men like me – I mean, of course, graduates in Middle English poetry – who’ve turned out to be effective warriors,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Well, yes,’ the dean said weakly.

  Further embarrassment for the dean – which Charlie Swift was more than ready to inflict – was prevented by the arrival of the head porter.

  ‘Yes, Gough?’ the bursar said.

  ‘I wonder if I could possibly have a word with you in private, sir?’ the porter said.

  ‘What’s it about?’ the dean asked imperiously.

  ‘It’s about the catering arrangements, sir.’

  ‘Oh, very well then, if I must,’ the bursar said, with a heavy sigh as he rose to his feet.

  Charlie saw the three commoners exchange puzzled glances, and laughed inwardly. Why had the catering arrangements anything to do with the head porter, they were asking themselves? Surely it was more a matter of concern for the butler – or possibly even the chef.

  But what they hadn’t realised at this point – but would eventually, if they stayed in St Luke’s long enough – was that the head porter was like a spider whose web reached all corners of college life.

  The previous bursar had resented this, and having spent a year at Harvard University, where he had studied the works of Max Weber, he had found no difficulty at all in constructing an organisational chart.

  ‘Now this being a new concept to you, it might seem quite complex at first,’ he’d explained to all the staff, ‘but in essence, it’s very simple.’ He’d held it up for them to see. ‘Think of it as a railway line map. The dean, the master and I are all mainline stations, and you are all branch lines connected to one of us. The kitchen, for example, is on my branch line, whereas the bulldogs are on the dean’s branch line.’

  And there, at the very edge of the page – at the very end of the line – were the porters in what might as well have been called Way-Out-On-A-Limb Halt.

  But it hadn’t worked out like that at all, Charlie Swift thought. The porters’ office was not, to use the bursar’s own terminology, the end of the line – it was the junction which the big stations had to feed trains into if they ever wanted anything done.

  Mr Gough did nothing to fight off this attempt to exclude him from the mainstream life of the college. He knew that he did not need to, and contented himself with simply following the bursar’s strict instructions as to his role and function and waiting for things to fall apart.

  It did not take long. The chef, having an artistic nature, was the first person to have a nervous breakdown, but the bursar was not far behind, and the new bursar – this bursar – had rapidly decided that since things seemed to have worked quite well in the past, it would be best to revert to the old system (whatever that was!)

  The bursar returned to the table looking grave, with an even graver Gough by his side.

  ‘I’m afraid that, for this evening at least, the waiters will, in fact, be waitresses,’ the bursar said.

  ‘What!’ the dean exploded. ‘But that’s unhear
d of in the entire history of the college.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ the bursar agreed, ‘but as Gough has just pointed out to me, most of the college servants have now been called up by the army.’

  ‘And what about all the old college servants who you employed to replace them, Gough?’ the dean demanded.

  ‘They are, as you have just so eloquently pointed out, sir, old,’ the porter said. ‘Jeremiah Dorkins’ lumbago has flared up, and Seth Halcrombe is down with the influenza.’

  ‘But waitresses …’ the dean said, helplessly.

  ‘I know, dean, it is most regrettable,’ the porter agreed.

  ‘Is there no one else who can do it?’

  ‘Well, there’s always Lennie Moon,’ Gough said.

  The dean felt a shiver run through him. There were good reasons – very good economic reasons – why the college employed Lennie Moon, but the man was a dribbling cretin, and there was no way that he could be let loose near a civilised dining table.

  ‘These women,’ he said, ‘who are they, Gough?’

  ‘One of them is Lucy Jenkins, sir.’

  ‘Jenkins? Jenkins?’ the dean mused.

  ‘She’s the wife of one of the junior porters – Harold Jenkins,’ Gough said. ‘He was called up a few months ago.’

  ‘And who’s the other one?’

  ‘She’s Harold Jenkins’ cousin, Mildred Drew – the wife of one of the groundsmen. Of course, neither of the women has ever been in college service themselves, but they will have heard their husbands talk about their duties and responsibilities, and so will already know what is expected of them.’

  The dean sighed. ‘Very well then, I suppose we all have to make sacrifices in wartime, and in that spirit we will consent, on this occasion, to be served by women – but I trust that such a situation will not occur again, Gough.’

  ‘I’ll do my best to see that it doesn’t, sir,’ the head porter promised.

  St Luke’s refectory had been constructed at a time when Gothic architecture was de rigueur in Oxford, and in consequence, it had an impressively tall (and impressively sharply arched) ceiling. The high table was located at one end of the refectory, and was, as its name suggested, a table on a raised platform, from where it was possible to look down on the other tables, at which (normally) sat young, slightly-bloated backwoods aristocrats struggling with (or more often, ignoring) the demands of their courses, and young, sharp-faced and ambitious law students, with their thoughts firmly set on a future judge’s bench and horsehair wig.