Loretta Lawson 01 - A Masculine Ending

by Joan Smith

  Loretta shook her head in disbelief. ‘You’ve missed your vocation,’ she said scornfully. ‘I thought you worked for a quality paper, not the News of the World.’

  ‘It is possible,’ Tracey insisted defensively. ‘You’d be surprised what people get up to.’ He seemed relieved that the waiter chose this moment to bring their kebabs to the table.

  The rain was easing off, and people started to appear on the street again. Loretta was just refilling their glasses with retsina when she heard shouts and the sound of a scuffle in the doorway next to the restaurant. As she turned to look, several waiters rushed out of the kebab house and dived into the doorway, apparently joining in whatever was going on. Seconds later, a struggling mass of people erupted into the road. The man at the centre of the fracas broke free and hurled himself towards Loretta, falling to the ground in his attempt to reach her.

  ‘Help!’ he shouted, ‘They’re trying to kill me! I wasn’t doing no harm!’

  Aghast, Loretta looked round wildly. Spotting an older man in a cook’s hat and apron, she appealed to him. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.

  ‘He is thief,’ the cook replied phlegmatically. ‘He get into my flat, my wife see him in bedroom. She scream, and call my son. He chase him, she ring me and I send waiters after him.’

  The man at whom this charge was directed struggled violently but failed to escape the hands of his captors a second time. ‘It’s not true, lady,’ he wailed. ‘You saw me go in there. I was just getting out of the rain.’

  Loretta suddenly realized that this was the man in jeans who had made for the doorway when the shower began. She was about to speak when Tracey intervened.

  ‘She doesn’t know anything about it,’ he said firmly. ‘We saw you go in there, but we’ve no idea what you did when you got inside. Has anyone called the police?’

  ‘Yes, yes, police coming,’ said the cook, and at that moment they heard the wail of an approaching siren. The alleged thief gave a violent heave and escaped again for a matter of seconds, only to be brought down with a rugby tackle by the largest of the waiters. Within minutes he was sitting in the back of a police Rover while a woman constable made the rounds of the restaurant looking for witnesses.

  Loretta and Tracey turned back to their meal. ‘You seem fated to get a floor-show along with your meals these days,’ Tracey observed. ‘First you get assaulted in a restaurant in Paris, and then the local burglar throws himself on your mercy.’

  There you are,’ Loretta said triumphantly. ‘It just goes to prove that bizarre things do happen quite unexpectedly. If you hadn’t seen it yourself, you’d think it highly unlikely that anyone could get involved in that sort of scene while having lunch off Oxford Street.’

  ‘Point taken,’ Tracey conceded. ‘But I’m not sure how I can help you, even if I accept your theory about a murder at the flat.’

  ‘I thought you might have some ideas about what I should do next,’ Loretta said. ‘I can’t face going to the police - it’s not their case, and they’d think I was a complete fool for coming back to London before reporting it. And, as we both agree, it’s not clear what there is to report.’

  ‘I should think the first thing to do is to contact Andrew,’ Tracey suggested. ‘Surely he’ll have left a forwarding address with someone.’

  ‘I’m not a complete dimwit,’ Loretta said impatiently. ‘I’ve already tried that.’ She explained that Andrew was currently beyond reach, and opened her briefcase. ‘There is this,’ she said, producing a book. ‘It’s the one I found in the bookcase.’ She handed it to Tracey.

  ‘Good God,’ he exclaimed. ‘The Resurrection of Little Nell: A Challenge to the Authority of Charles Dickens. Is it a misprint? Surely he means authorship, not authority? But I had no idea there was any doubt about who wrote The Old Curiosity Shop.’

  There isn’t,’ Loretta laughed. ‘Haven’t you heard of deconstruction? Post-structuralism? It’s very fashionable in some English departments these days.’

  ‘Don’t forget I’m just a humble journalist,’ Tracey said. ‘It’s a long time since I left university.’ He began to read the introduction. ‘There are four words I don’t understand in the first sentence,’ he complained. ‘What’s semiology when it’s at home? Sounds like the science of doing things by halves. You don’t teach this stuff, do you?’

  Loretta admitted, with a private feeling of satisfaction, that she didn’t. ‘But I’m considered very old-fashioned,’ she confessed. ‘Anyway, that’s not the point. I didn’t invite you here to discuss trends in English literature.’ Leaning across, she retrieved the book, took out the compliments slip and handed it to Tracey. ‘It hasn’t been published yet,’ she said. ‘What I want to know is, how many copies would be sent out before the publication date?’

  Tracey considered the piece of paper. ‘It depends,’ he said. ‘If the author was a best-selling novelist, presumably dozens. Hundreds even. But that wouldn’t apply in this case. Have you ever heard of Toby MacGregor?’

  Loretta shook her head. ‘I haven’t even heard of the publisher,’ she said. ‘It’s certainly not one of the big ones like OUP.’

  ‘In that case, it’s probably a small company publishing academic texts that they’ve picked up for a song,’ Tracey said. ‘Which means they’re probably rather mean, and send out as few review copies as possible. The TLS, perhaps The Literary Review, and a few specialists in the field who might review it in academic journals. I don’t suppose they’d bother with newspapers, and it’s hardly going to interest the readers of Woman’s Own. Maybe only half a dozen copies.’

  ‘How can I get a list of the people it was sent to?’ Loretta asked urgently. ‘Whoever took it to the flat is almost bound to be on it.’

  ‘Simple,’ said Tracey. ‘Ring them up and ask.’

  Loretta looked doubtful. ‘Why should they tell me?’ she objected. ‘It’s not as if I can tell them why I want to know. I can hardly say I think one of the people who received it has been murdered.’

  ‘Or is a murderer,’ Tracey interrupted. ‘It could just as easily belong to the person who did it as the victim. Or do you think a taste for this semiology business is incompatible with the lust to kill?’

  ‘Be serious,’ Loretta rebuked him. ‘You’re supposed to be helping me. I can’t see why the publisher should hand over a list of people who got review copies just because I ring up and ask for it. I don’t even know who to speak to.’

  ‘You’d be surprised at what people will tell you,’ Tracey assured her. ‘It’s easier than you think.’

  ‘It is for you,’ Loretta objected. ‘You’ve been doing this sort of thing for years, and you sound plausible. Even if I could think of a cover story, I’d give myself away by sounding nervous. But you could do it.’

  Tracey was taken aback. ‘Hang on a minute, Loretta, I’m not sure I want to get mixed up in this,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not getting mixed up in anything.’ Loretta said angrily. ‘It’s not as if I were asking a huge favour. You said yourself it was simple.’

  Tracey thought for a moment. ‘Oh, all right,’ he said with ill grace. ‘I’ll ring and say I’m doing a piece about how small publishing houses make a living these days. I can say I’d like to take this book as an example - how much they pay the author, size of the print run, how many copies get sent out for review. But don’t get any ideas - after this you’re on your own.’ Loretta thanked him, and paid the bill.

  ‘Where will you be this afternoon?’ Tracey asked as they parted. ‘I’ll let you know how I get on.’

  In matters like this, Tracey could be relied on to keep his word. When the phone rang in her flat just after five o’clock, she picked it up and recognized his voice.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ he said, ‘for what it’s worth. Nine copies - I was almost right. Have you got a pen?’ The book had gone to the journals he had mentioned at lunch, plus three upmarket Sunday newspapers. Loretta wondered whether this was a wildly optimistic gesture on the p
art of the publisher, or a reflection of structuralism’s fashionable status in the media. She suspected it was the former. The list was completed by the names of four individuals, all lecturers in English, whom Loretta knew by reputation.

  When Tracey rang off, she sat and pondered her next step. She could, with a bit of thought, invent excuses for ringing up the lecturers on the list to make sure they were alive and well. Of course, that would establish only that none of them was the victim. It would not rule out any of them as the murderer. The newspapers and journals were a much greater problem. Because she had visited Tracey’s office occasionally during the years of her marriage, she knew that books were often left lying around where anyone could pick them up. If the papers had decided against reviewing MacGregor’s book - a strong possibility, she thought - any member of staff could have taken a fancy to it. Even if she got through to the right person in the literary section of each journal, there was no guarantee that he or she would be able to tell her its exact whereabouts.

  She decided to start with the academics on her list. It was a good time of day to ring a university department if you didn’t really want to speak to the person you were asking for, she thought - there was a good chance that they would have gone home, but the department secretary would be able to tell her whether they’d put in an appearance in the last few days. She looked at the first name, and was aware of an irrational feeling that because Hermione Dangerfield was a woman, she had nothing to do with the case. If the man she had seen at the flat was the killer, there was no reason to suppose his victim was not a woman. Loretta rang Directory Enquiries and got the number of Kent University.

  She started to dial and stopped when she remembered that it was still the long vacation. Dr Dangerfield might well be away on holiday. Well, she thought, it couldn’t be helped. She had no other leads to follow up. A minute later she was through to the English department. The story she had prepared - that she was carrying out a survey on whether female lecturers were commissioned to write reviews less frequently than their male colleagues - seemed uncomfortably thin. It was with immense relief, then, that she heard the department secretary say that she had missed Dr Dangerfield.

  ‘She’s just popped out to the dentist,’ the woman explained. ‘Can I get her to call you tomorrow morning?’

  Loretta quickly demurred; she would ring back, she said untruthfully. Putting the phone down, she drew a faint line through Hermione Dangerfield’s name at the top of her list. The next name was that of Bernard Romilly, whom Loretta knew to be a pompous Reader in English at Durham. She found it hard to imagine his wanting to review a poststructuralist tome: perhaps the publisher had been hoping to provoke a literary controversy by encouraging a hostile review.

  She rang Durham and, to her horror, was put straight through. Romilly responded explosively to her explanation about an imaginary survey; the problem was not the exclusion of women from academic journals, he snapped, but the favouritism shown towards anyone who happened to teach at an Oxbridge college. Although the view was one with which she had some sympathy, it was expressed in such a way that, by the time she got off the phone, she was feeling a hearty dislike for Bernard Romilly. If an inflated ego was sufficient excuse for murder, he would have been bumped off years ago. What was clear was that - deserve it though he might - Romilly had not fallen victim to an enraged epistemologist in Andrew’s flat in Paris.

  There were two names left. It was now after six but, since both taught at Oxford colleges, there was a reasonable chance that someone would be able to tell her whether they’d been seen since the weekend. She decided to start with Martin Smith, a well-known authority on the Brontë sisters.

  The switchboard operator at the college was helpful; Dr Smith was away on holiday, she said, and due back in the next few days. Loretta’s heart leapt: had he stopped off in Paris on his way back to England? She pressed the woman for a more exact estimate of when Dr Smith was due back, but the result was inconclusive. He had been very vague, the switchboard operator said, confiding that Dr Smith was not, at the best of times, a very reliable timekeeper. All she could suggest was that Loretta give it a few days and try again. Frustrated, Loretta rang off. How was she to find out whether anyone on her list was missing if they were as imprecise as this about their plans? Her enthusiasm waning, she turned to the last name on the list.

  Hugh Puddephat was, she knew, one of the leading lights in the poststructuralist movement. Had he too gone off on holiday for an unspecified period of time? She got through to the college, and learned that Dr Puddephat was at this very moment attending a conference in Italy. He was due back in England later in the week. Loretta expressed her thanks for this information, and rang off.

  Another potential victim off the list, she thought. If Dr Puddephat was even now discussing trends in deconstructionist theory in some charming little town in Italy, he could not have been the object of foul play three or four days ago in Paris. As far as corpses were concerned, the only candidate remaining to her was the maddening Dr Smith. Loretta supposed she would have to ring his college again at the end of the week. She did not feel she had achieved very much for a whole afternoon of detective work.

  Later that evening, unable to think of any more avenues to explore, she tried Tracey’s home number. The phone rang only once before she heard the click that told her she was about to get his answering-machine. She put the phone down, resolving to try him at work next morning. But her luck was definitely out. There was no answer from his extension and when she succeeded in getting transferred to the news desk, a secretary told her that Tracey had gone to Manchester for the rest of the week. Declining the woman’s invitation to leave a message, Loretta once again rang off. He was following up the story about the old people’s home, she guessed, and nothing annoyed him more than interruptions when his sights were set on exposing some sort of villainy. She would just have to wait. In any case, she had other things to think about: her mother’s operation was due to take place next morning. She had done what she could for the time being, and Andrew would be back on Friday. Making a note to ring Charlbury and Martin Smith’s college at the end of the week, Loretta did her best to contain her impatience for the next couple of days.

  On Wednesday evening, her father rang with the news that her mother’s operation had been a success; Loretta drove down to Gillingham the following afternoon, and spent half an hour at Mrs Lawson’s bedside. Her mother was weak, but a houseman assured her that this was the effect of the anaesthetic. There was nothing to worry about. Loretta spent the night at her parents’ house, and returned to London first thing on Friday morning.

  As soon as she arrived at her flat, she made her second call to Dr Smith’s college. She tapped her fingers impatiently on the arm of her chair while she waited for the college to answer. Now that her mother’s operation was out of the way, her need to know what had happened in Paris had returned with renewed force. As a result, her request to speak to Dr Smith came out in an indecent rush, and she had to repeat herself before getting an answer. When she did get a reply, it did nothing to diminish her excitement. No, the woman said, Dr Smith wasn’t back, nor had there been any message from him. Loretta was far from being the only person who wanted to get hold of him, she added, making little attempt to conceal her irritation with the absent don.

  Loretta thanked her and rang off, wondering what to do next. Clearly, the attitude of the college staff towards Smith’s non-appearance was simply one of annoyance, but then the college authorities didn’t know what she knew. At this point, Loretta pulled herself up short. She was allowing her imagination to run away with her. There might yet be a straightforward explanation for Smith’s absence and, apart from the book by Toby MacGregor, she had no evidence to connect him with the flat. Feeling sorely in need of Tracey’s thoughts on the matter, she tried the Sunday Herald news desk again. He was still in Manchester. With a cluck of impatience, she tried Andrew’s cottage in Charlbury. The phone rang for ages with no reply.

/>   Loretta’s sense of frustration grew in leaps and bounds over the course of the weekend. Andrew’s phone continued to ring unanswered every time she tried it and, by Sunday afternoon, she was kicking herself for not checking the time of his return with the American woman she had spoken to at the cottage at the beginning of the week. Nor did she have any luck with Tracey. Instead of returning to London on Saturday, as she had expected, he left a message with the news desk to the effect that he was spending the weekend with friends in Chester and would not be back in town until Monday. Loretta had no idea that Tracey knew anyone in Chester, and he hadn’t given their number to the news desk. She could only hope that it would occur to him to ring and ask how she had got on with the list.

  When the phone rang on Sunday evening, she confidently expected to hear Tracey’s voice on picking it up. She didn’t.

  ‘I phoned to thank you,’ said Andrew Walker. ‘I’ve never seen the flat so tidy. You must have spent the entire weekend cleaning the place up. How did you find time to go to your conference?’

  The flat?’ Loretta gasped, completely thrown off balance. ‘You’ve been to the flat? But I thought… you said… what about Greece?’

  ‘Oh, yes, that,’ Andrew said dismissively. ‘Well, it’s a nice enough place for the first three or four days but then it does become rather boring. One can have enough sea and sand, you know. To cut a long story short, I decided I’d had my fill after a week and got a boat to Italy. I’ve been wending my way back to England through Switzerland and France, which is why I’m a couple of days late. I had a much better time than I would have done on that wretched island.’

  ‘But the flat,’ Loretta protested weakly. ‘When did you stay at the flat?’ What about the blood? Surely he’d seen the blood?

  ‘I took the sleeper from Stresa to Paris on Tuesday night,’ he replied. ‘I took myself off to rue Roland and slept most of the day. I needed it after a night on that train, I can tell you. Take my advice, if you’re going on a long train journey, do it by day.’