Fruitful Bodies

by Morag Joss

  The campus consisted of a half dozen or so visually unrelated buildings whose entrances had been concealed (surely deliberately) by their being placed either round the back, down the side, up or down flights of outside steps, or all four. Some were recognisable as entrances at all only by the delinquent huddles of wheelie bins outside. The buildings were connected by brick pathways, windy stairs and treacherous ramps arranged with Escher-like malice to necessitate the taking of long, pointless walks between destinations. Bright plastic-coated signs with arrows did not help much; no consensus had been reached about whether locations were to be identified by level (LOWER CONCOURSE 2 SPANISH AND LEVEL 3 >) or academic department (< PHARMACOLOGY LEVEL D SPANISH > LIFTS AND STAIRS) or function (LABORATORIES/DRAMA STUDIO > STRAIGHT ON LEVEL 1 < PHYSICS BUILDING) or by whimsical given names (BRUNEL GALLERY LEVEL A < >BECKFORD BUILDING/WILBERFORCE (STATISTICS) ANNEXE >).

  ‘Sir, sir, this is us, isn’t it?’ Bridger walked over to peer at a single fluttering sheet of white paper stuck with masking tape to the outside of a window. Done in thick black marker pen, an arrow below the words ‘UWE/BCTILHE Mycology Symposium’ directed them inside. Growling gently, Andrew followed Bridger who, encouraged by his own initiative in picking up the trail, led the way, guided by a succession of handwritten notices which brought them up through several bleak stairwells, along corridors and past payphones, classrooms, coffee machines, pigeonholes, notice boards and administration desks to a pair of double doors marked BRITISH GAS (SOUTHERN) CONFERENCE SUITE on the top floor.

  Just inside the doors, the smell of bacon hit Andrew like a wallop on the nose. From the corridor that stretched down past the empty reception desk came the clatter of cutlery mixed with the sound of piped music.

  ‘Right. Safe to assume that’s the conference dining room down there and the delegates are still having breakfast. Go on, Bridger, get in there and track down Mr Takahashi.’

  Bridger reappeared a moment later, alone. ‘Eh, sir, I’ve found him. He’s still having his breakfast.’ There was an exasperated silence as Andrew looked wanly past Bridger’s ear.

  ‘Just get him, Bridger.’

  ‘Thing is, he still doesn’t know, does he? That his wife’s dead, I mean. Seems a shame, I mean, he’s going to know soon enough, isn’t he? Shouldn’t we let him just finish his breakfast first?’

  Bridger’s newfound if clumsy compassion would have been, if Andrew had been curious, puzzling. ‘Let’s just get on with it, shall we?’ he asked in tired irritation, leading the way.

  The source of the bacon smell was more of a self-service cafeteria than a dining room. Of the twenty or so functional tables, each with four matching chairs, set out with only squeezing distance between, fewer than a third were occupied. Bridger nodded towards a dark-haired man hunched with concentration over his plate at an otherwise empty table. Mr Takahashi half rose for introductions and then bowed them into the seats opposite, smiling apologetically. His black hair was silvered; he looked at least twenty years older than the woman in the mortuary.

  ‘Please, please.’ He pointed downwards with his fork and beamed at his breakfast.

  ‘Fond of our famous English breakfast, then, sir?’ Bridger said, with nervous joviality. Andrew scowled at him and cleared his throat.

  ‘Ah, yes!’ Mr Takahashi pointed downwards again. ‘Very, very good, I am very fond of hash browns, also the bacon. Eggs—easy over, also. Sunny side up! Tomato, mushroom, all very good.’ He began to eat with enthusiasm while still laughing at his fondness for the food, a disconcerting sight. He seemed quite lacking in curiosity as to why two police officers should have dropped in apparently to watch him. Andrew cleared his throat again.

  ‘Mr Takahashi, we tracked you down by contacting your department at the University of Kobe in Japan. We understand from them that you and your wife came over here for a symposium.’ Mr Takahashi was nodding happily as the next mouthful went in. ‘Mr Takahashi, what do you know of your wife’s whereabouts now?’

  Mr Takahashi’s chewing face began to frown. ‘My wife accompany me. My wife is assistant to me in my work.’

  ‘What work is that, exactly, Mr Takahashi?’ Bridger asked, in a tone that Andrew thought inappropriately conversational as well as irrelevant.

  Mr Takahashi speared three large mushrooms with his fork, folded a slab of fried egg over them and held the morsel up for their inspection. There was a glistening smear of fat on his chin and a gleam in his eyes. ‘Ah. I am mycologist, mycology, very interesting subject. Also delicious!’

  Just as the egg yolk on top was gathering momentum for its inevitable slide down the prongs and on to the handle, the forkful disappeared into Mr Takahashi’s mouth with a clang and scrape on the teeth, and appreciative slurping noises. Andrew, revolted, thought that he remembered that in Japan it is polite to indicate enjoyment of a meal. He closed his eyes briefly and opened them again, trying to broaden his mind to accommodate the spectacle before him. He even began to rehearse mentally how he would amuse Sara this evening with an impersonation of Mr Takahashi, hoping that by doing so he could make it seem privately funny now, until the thought that he would not be amusing Sara this evening at all because she had all but thrown him out last night hit him so hard he felt almost light-headed. After the business at the mortuary last night, when he had been trying to let himself quietly into Medlar Cottage at one o’clock, that fucking dachshund (whose presence he had completely forgotten about) had started up. So instead of tiptoeing upstairs and explaining softly to his sleepy darling why he was so late, he had been met by a barking animal, a dazed old lady and a furious, exhausted Sara who had complained that she hadn’t expected him this late. He had gone back to the flat. And instead of going straight round to talk to her this morning and dealing with the only thing that really mattered to him, he had wasted hours trying to find this bloody place and was now having to wait while the guy finished his bloody breakfast. His pain hardened into rage and he rubbed his eyes, resolving to speak to Sara the minute he got back to Bath, just as soon as they’d booked this grinning fool with the mushroom habit.

  Mr Takahashi chewed open-mouthed as he prepared his next forkful and continued, ‘Mushrooms, very good for breakfast. Also very good for studying, very interesting! I am professor of mycology, representing Phytopathological Society of Japan.’ He swallowed his mouthful and the next followed. ‘All people here, we study for summer, all paid, very international symposium, organised by British Council Trust for International Link in Higher Education.’ He was delighted with himself for remembering the title of his host and benefactor.

  Bridger at last seemed about to be getting to the point. ‘Wouldn’t have thought there would be that much to study. Is it your first visit to this country, Mr Takahashi? You see, I’m afraid we—’

  ‘Ha, there you are not quite correct. Oh no, fungi is very, very big subject. All thallotypes, no chlorophyll, nuclear cells. Fruiting bodies, reproducing by spores. Fungal body is single-celled thallus or threadlike structure called hypha, hyphae together constitute mycelium—’

  ‘When did you last see your wife, Professor Takahashi?’ Andrew asked.

  The professor’s elation lessened. His chewing slowed to a cud-like rhythm as he considered how to reply. When at last his mouth was empty he said, ‘I understand. She make complaint. She complain to English police?’ A glance from Andrew stopped Bridger, whose mouth was already open, from speaking. They waited. Mr Takahashi put down his knife and fork.

  ‘I apologise,’ he said, bowing his head. ‘I hope my wife will forgive my disgraceful behaviour. I was very wrong, I meant only to correct her attitude, but I apologise.’

  ‘Please tell us what happened, Mr Takahashi.’ Andrew reached across, took hold of Mr Takahashi’s half-empty plate and slid it with its offensively congealing contents towards Bridger, who removed it to another table. Mr Takahashi’s sorrowing eyes followed the plate and his look of contrition deepened. He sat up straighter and folded his hands in his lap. The c
afeteria was almost empty now; the last stragglers, already in conversation, were leaving.

  ‘I come with my wife to England, she assists me, she is photograph researcher for my work. But she is depressed. Perhaps she is not feeling well, homesick. Please understand that I am Japanese husband so it is my duty to stop this behaviour. She must have self-discipline to overcome her depression, I tell her this, she has no reason for unhappiness. So she must try to be happy. But my wife, she does not like this, so she go for a few days to Bath. She is very independent, like English, American wife, I say to her. We are very fond of English, American methods.’

  ‘So what is this disgraceful behaviour that you hope your wife will forgive, exactly, Mr Takahashi?’

  Bridger broke in. ‘Excuse me, sir, Mr Takahashi, if you’ll excuse us for a moment, I would just like a quick word with the Detective Chief Inspector. Won’t be a moment. Sir?’

  Andrew had no option but to leave the table and follow. Bridger halted a safe distance away. ‘Sorry sir, but …’

  ‘What the hell are you playing at, Bridger? Why are you giving him the chat like that? “Is this your first visit to England?” Good god, man, do you think you’re working for the tourist board?’

  ‘Sorry sir, but look, we’ve come to tell him his wife’s dead, haven’t we? We’re supposed to be breaking the bad news and getting him to come and give a positive identification. I meant to say in the car, but shouldn’t we have been in touch with the consulate? I mean, he speaks good English, but what if he didn’t? We should have laid on an interpreter. He’s in a foreign country, probably got no one here to turn to.’

  ‘Bridger, haven’t you heard a word he’s told us? His English is perfectly okay. I haven’t time to be fannying about with interpreters, I’ve got things to do back in Bath. He’s admitted there was trouble between them. If he’d kept talking another minute he would have confessed he killed her, and you drag me away to talk about interpreters?’

  ‘Sir? You really think he’s a suspect, do you, sir? I mean, normally, of course, you’d expect a category C. I know you’d look first to see if it’s a domestic, but this bloke’s just an academic, a visitor. If you ask me we’ve got our killer, haven’t we? That Cruikshank woman. You said so yourself. Sir.’

  Andrew stared at him. ‘That Cruikshank woman, Bridger, is, as I remember telling you, an unreliable and probably incurable alcoholic who quite possibly had a motive for killing Mrs Takahashi. Which doesn’t mean she did. As for breaking the news, I’m not at all sure that we have to. I think he probably knows, for the obvious reason. Now, are you going to let me get on with this, or are you going to start recommending the Lake District?’

  ‘Sir? But sir, if you think he is a suspect …’ Andrew had already begun to walk away, but Bridger pulled at his arm. ‘Sir—excuse me sir, look—if you’re talking to him as a suspect, shouldn’t you caution and arrest him? I mean strictly speaking, if he—’

  ‘Let’s just get on, Bridger.’

  When they returned to the table, Mr Takahashi was still sitting upright but appallingly large tears had gathered in his eyes and were dripping on to his shirt. He looked up desperately.

  ‘Sorry about that, Mr Takahashi. Now, I was asking you, I think, what there was that you needed forgiveness for?’

  Mr Takahashi’s lips tightened. ‘I am trying to tell my wife she must cheer herself, be pleased. But she says she does not wish to spend her time with me in Bristol. I am older man than my wife. I am too impatient and … look, I am modern Japanese, I agree it is wrong to strike her, even one small slap.’

  ‘How many times exactly did you strike your wife?’

  ‘Oh, only one time, because she is behaving in stupid way, refusing to eat and crying! Only one! One slap across face, not so …’ Mr Takahashi made his hand into a fist. ‘Slap only. To calm her. But she—I have to, to stop her …’ Andrew allowed him a silence, and after a long pause, got what he wanted. The man, inculcated in a culture in which confession, as the precursor of shame, carries the only hope of absolution, continued, ‘She is very very angry, and she is small, so she take my hair, tight, and I take hers also and try to stop her. Not hard, just to stop her.’

  ‘How did you stop her? You banged your wife’s head against the wall to try to stop her leaving you? Your wife wanted to leave you and you tried to stop her, is that it? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘She is not leaving me. She is Japanese wife, I remind her. So she agrees she wants only to leave to have break, to have peaceful time alone. She is not disgraceful. This is what she says.’

  Bridger’s jaw was now slack with disappointment. He would have to brazen it out with Frayling. Perhaps he could dress up the idea of Cruikshank as prime suspect as Poole’s idea, while he had been the one to put pressure on Takahashi.

  Mr Takahashi was saying, ‘This is all very unfortunate. And I feel truly sorry that my wife go to Bath. I cannot follow her, I am specialist in Ascomycetes, you see. I am giving paper on hymenium in Tuber aestivum, Claviceps purpurea and Bulgaria inquinans. I must go and prepare, I have to get my slides ready.’

  ‘When did you last see your wife, Mr Takahashi?’

  Mr Takahashi looked at his watch. ‘Already it is nine fifty-two, I am speaking at ten o’clock. My wife, she is in Bath, as I say. She telephones on Friday and she say she want to see me. She will not come back to Bristol but instead I should go to Bath to talk to her on Saturday, yesterday. This is very unfortunate, very inconvenient for me because then I am going to miss important visit by symposium delegates to International Mycological Institute at Kew Gardens, I am not pleased to go to Bath instead.’ His face had grown angry. ‘My wife does not think of this, she does not care, she is lacking in respect. I go to Bath because I wish to apologise humbly, but she makes me more angry instead.’

  ‘Tell me exactly what happened, if you would, when you arrived in Bath.’

  ‘I get on train arriving in Bath. I am meeting my wife at 12.30 at the Royal Photographic Society. I tell her we will have lunch but she does not agree. She will not have lunch, perhaps only a beverage, but will meet me to tell me something important, this is what she says. So I say yes to meet her at the Royal Photographic Society.’

  Andrew drew in a breath silently and waited for Mr Takahashi’s confession that he had not been able to persuade his wife to come back to him, that when she had left to escape him he had followed her down the alleyway, lost his temper, grabbed her by the hair, dragged her through the side entrance and into the pub passageway where he banged her head into the wall, strangled her and stuffed her body into the cupboard. Nobody had disturbed him: there were no customers because the pub was not open and none of the kitchen staff would have heard a thing above the permanently blaring radio. Was it going to be this easy?

  ‘But she is not there.’

  ‘But you hit her. You said so. You met your wife and you hit her.’

  ‘No. I unfortunately have difficulty in finding Royal Photographic Society and I am eight minutes late. I wait outside, but she did not come. I think she is very angry that I am late and she did not wait for me, even one minute. I wait until after one o’clock, but she did not come. So I came back to Bristol.’ Mr Takahashi scraped back his chair and stood up. ‘I am ready to be punished. My wife is right to complain that I strike her. It is most clear, she is angry that I am late, she think I do not care and do not keep appointment on Saturday so she has complained to the English police. But if she forgives me I too will forgive her for her behaviour to me. Please take me to my wife now, I wish to apologise to her and to forgive her.’

  Andrew, knowing that he was a bastard to do it, also stood up. ‘Bridger, inform Mr Takahashi about his wife, for the record. And then arrest him. I’ll be outside.’

  He turned, wove his way through the plastic-topped tables to the door and in the neutral air of the corridor outside Breakfast World, breathed in deeply. He had no stomach for the clapping-on of the handcuffs, metaphorically or actually, wh
ereas Bridger clearly enjoyed his role as instrument of the law, which he did with all the magisterial pomposity that he could summon in his polyester-tied, five-foot-eight, ginger-topped frame. But already Andrew was despising himself for his squeamishness over what was, in the end, a procedural necessity, and was composing in his mind a slightly altered version of events to tell Sara in which he would figure just a little more heroically. He was, he realised, already preparing to bask in the light of vindication, hoping that she would be not only impressed by the early arrest but ready now to understand the point of his sudden and hurtful preoccupation with the case. And Andrew had no doubt that Takahashi had killed his wife, but nonetheless he was beginning to construct, also for Sara, a slightly defensive set of reasons for being so certain.

  CHAPTER 12

  JOYCE HAD INSTIGATED a daily routine for herself with more determination than was polite in a guest and had unpacked her bags and boxes a little too comprehensively for Sara’s peace of mind. After her nasty shock in Green Street and possibly, Sara thought, in order to soak away in sleep a couple of hours each day and so shorten the time available in which to crave a drink, Joyce had also announced that she would take a little nap in the afternoons. When she informed Sara of this decision on the Sunday, she had added that she would be grateful if Sara would wake her at around four o’clock with a cup of tea.