Loretta Lawson 01 - A Masculine Ending

by Joan Smith

  ‘So you arrived on Wednesday,’ Loretta prompted. Why was he keeping her in suspense?

  ‘yes, and as I said, the place has never been so spick and span. It’s the first time anyone’s polished the floors since we rented it, and that’s… well, quite a number of years.’

  Polished the floors? Loretta thought wildly, trying to picture the flat in her mind. If she remembered what the floors were like at all, her impression was that they were of dull wood with occasional threadbare rugs. If Andrew was telling the truth, it could only mean that someone had been back to rue Roland and done a very thorough cleaning job, which would also explain why Andrew hadn’t mentioned the bloodstained sheets - presumably they’d gone as well. But who? It could only have been the murderer. Loretta felt a chill pass through her body. It was quickly followed by another sinister thought. Was Andrew telling the truth? Or was he testing her? Had he been involved in whatever had happened in the flat, might he even now be trying to trick her into revealing what she knew?

  The unlikeliness of this suspicion did not take long to dawn on her. No one would commit a murder in a flat which they had loaned to a friend for the weekend. She was very nearly convinced by this thought. She was steeling herself to come clean with Andrew when another idea struck her. The evidence of the crime had been removed from the flat. Andrew had actually been there, and found nothing amiss. How would her story sound if she told it now? How could she explain that she had found bloodstained sheets in the bedroom but failed to go to the police, and that now the crucial evidence had disappeared? Even Tracey, who knew her much better than Andrew, had been initially sceptical about her story.

  She realized that Andrew was in the midst of describing the interior of a church he’d visited in Paris. She hoped she had been making the right noises at intervals. While he rhapsodized about the workmanship of the roodscreen, she gathered her thoughts. She would not, at this point, take him into her confidence, but she might be able to extract some information from him. ‘I’m afraid I can’t take credit for the state of the flat,’ she said when he paused for breath. ‘I hardly spent any time there, and I certainly didn’t get down on my hands and knees to do any scrubbing or polishing. One of your co-tenants must have been there recently.’

  That’s odd,’ said Andrew. ‘I happen to know none of them has stayed there since, let’s see, July it must have been. I remember Alex phoned up to say he was going then, but he hasn’t been since. He’s a television producer, you know, and he does a live programme on Friday evenings. He wanted a weekend there before he got really tied up with the show. It’s his name on the door by the way, he’s Alex Gardner.’ The other two tenants, he explained, were also out of the running: Jim was working in the States, and Colin had been laid up for several weeks with a broken leg. ‘I suppose it must have been Alex,’ Andrew said finally. ‘He never used to be tidy - perhaps he’s turned over a leaf in middle age.’

  Loretta thanked him for the loan of the flat, and asked how she should return the keys.

  ‘Hang on to them for the time being,’ Andrew said. ‘I’ve got a spare set, as you’ll have gathered.’

  Offering to buy him dinner next time he had a free evening in town - a promise he would hold her to, she knew - Loretta rang off. It looked as though the man she’d shared the flat with on her first night in Paris had been there unofficially. So how had he got hold of the keys? Perhaps the stranger was someone who had once used them legitimately, as she had, but had hung on to them. Or had them copied? That seemed the most likely explanation. It also opened up a dauntingly wide field of candidates for the deception - anyone who had stayed there since Andrew and his friends rented the flat in 1968, in fact. It didn’t bear thinking about. She was settling down into a state of unrelieved gloom when a new thought struck her. Andrew had been holding something back, she realized triumphantly. It wasn’t Greece he had got tired of, she was willing to bet, but his friend the painter.

  Next morning, as she leafed through the Guardian while eating a croissant, she spotted a headline which made her sit bolt upright in her chair. ‘Police Appeal Over Missing Don,’ she read. So Martin Smith had disappeared! She put down the uneaten half of her croissant, and read on. Thames Valley Police, said the paper, were appealing for information on the whereabouts of an Oxford don who had failed to turn up at a conference in Italy the previous week. Loretta blinked. Italy? The college authorities had called in the police, she read, when the conference organizers got in touch to ask whether Dr Hugh Puddephat had been taken ill. Loretta skimmed through to the end of the story. Not Martin Smith, but Hugh Puddephat. That would teach her to take things at face value. Of course, the woman she had spoken to at the college had simply assumed that Puddephat was safely at the conference. She didn’t have proof that he was there. Loretta went back to the beginning, and re-read the item more closely. It appeared that Puddephat had last been seen in Oxford on the Wednesday before the conference, and police were anxious to trace anyone who had seen him since. It couldn’t be a coincidence, Loretta thought. But did it mean that Puddephat was the victim of what had happened at the flat? Or was he the guilty perpetrator, fleeing across Europe from the consequences of what he had done? At that moment, the phone rang. Loretta grabbed it, and heard Tracey’s voice.

  ‘Hugh Puddephat’s missing!’ they exclaimed in unison.

  Chapter 3

  It was hard to tell, Loretta thought, which of them was the more disappointed by the other’s prior knowledge of the news. Tracey regained his wits first. ‘What are you going to do about it?’ he asked bluntly.

  Loretta was irritated; she had not had time to think that far ahead. ‘I’ll go to Oxford, of course,’ she said, hoping her tone was convincing enough to conceal that she had no idea what to do once she got there.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Tracey, in a friendlier tone of voice. ‘What about going to the police? Shouldn’t you consider that?’

  Loretta remembered that Tracey knew nothing of her conversation with Andrew. ‘So you see,’ she said, as she finished explaining that the sheets must have disappeared from the flat, ‘I haven’t got anything at all to back up my story.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Tracey said thoughtfully. ‘And the link between this chap Puddephat and the flat is a pretty tenuous one at the moment. Maybe you’re right. But shouldn’t you try and find out some more about him before you go rushing off? And, unless you’re intending to announce to the world what you’re up to, you’re going to need some sort of cover story.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll look up the books he’s written at the college library and take a couple out,’ said Loretta airily. ‘I can leaf through them on the train, and they might give me something to go on.’

  ‘I may be able to do better than that,’ said Tracey. ‘Let’s see, it’s nearly ten o’clock. Let me make a very quick phone call and come back to you.’

  Five minutes later, the phone rang again. ‘If you’ve got time to go into the Herald office this afternoon, I’ve arranged for you to have a look at his file in our library,’ he told her. They’ve just checked, and there are several cuttings in it. Seems he was involved in some sort of scandal three or four years ago. I shan’t be in today as it’s Monday, but I’ve given your name to Bill, the head librarian, and he’s expecting you. Oh, one more thing. Have a look in Who’s Who while you’re there. They’ll have an up-to-date copy if you ask for it. The library’s on the second floor, by the way. You can’t miss it.’

  She ought to be grateful for this lesson in investigative technique, Loretta thought as Tracey rang off. But she couldn’t help wishing he had offered to take a more active role in the affair. The prospect of inquiring into a murder single-handed was not one that she relished. But, looking on the bright side, she might have more idea of how to proceed after her visit to the cuttings library that afternoon. And, although she had come up with the idea of a visit to Oxford very much on the spur of the moment, it wasn’t a bad one. She would need somewhere to stay for at least a
night, and her closest friend in the town was herself an academic. There was a good chance that Bridget would be in touch with all the gossip about Puddephat’s disappearance.

  Picking up the phone, she dialled the number of the college at which Bridget Bennett taught English. She smiled as she waited to be connected to Bridget’s college rooms; Tracey would strongly disapprove if he knew whom she was calling. Loretta and Bridget had belonged to the same women’s group several years before, a group which Tracey had nicknamed ‘the coven’. He held its members, incorrectly, responsible for the break-up of his marriage. She had few friends to whom he objected as strongly as Bridget. But, if he wasn’t going to give her more concrete help himself, she would have to find other allies. Not that she had made up her mind about taking Bridget into her confidence - she would leave that decison until later. But, if the time did come when she needed another confidante, Bridget was the person she would choose. Bridget’s voice came on the line and, within minutes, the whole thing was arranged. Loretta would arrive at her friend’s house in Woodstock Road in time for supper, and the whole evening would be free for a chat. Feeling much more cheerful than she had after her conversation with Tracey, Loretta put the phone down.

  Early that afternoon, as soon as she could get away from a lunch with colleagues from her department, Loretta set off for the Sunday Herald building. She was glad to escape; it had been a working lunch, set up to discuss a new second-year course on the influence of gender on literary style, and the syllabus had provoked considerable opposition from two of her older male colleagues. She felt her contribution to the discussion had been negligible; it had taken her all her patience just to keep her temper. A walk was exactly what she needed, although the continuing hot weather made it less pleasant than it might have been. She arrived at the Herald building at half past three, and walked past the uniformed commissionaire to the lift. As she got out, she spotted a sign to the library, and set off in the direction in which it pointed.

  In spite of Tracey’s assurance, the library was not easy to find; after the initial good start, it was signposted only intermittently, and at the end of one corridor she was left to guess. Choosing a left turn, she soon found herself facing a blank door which might, for all she knew, lead to the cuttings library. Opening it, she found herself in a large room in which row upon row of men sat behind video screens. The walls and doors, every available space in fact, were covered with pictures of large-breasted women from popular newspapers. Loretta shuddered, and began to back out. One of the men spotted her and emitted a stagy wolf-whistle. Loretta felt herself blush and her fury rose: she was equally angry with the man, who had done it to discomfit her, and herself, for reacting. She hastened back into the corridor and slammed the door. Retracing her steps, she encountered one of the paper’s rare female employees, who offered to show her the way to the library. No wonder she couldn’t find it, Loretta thought, as she followed the woman down a maze of identical mushroom-painted corridors. When they reached the right room, Loretta thanked her guide and went inside.

  The library was a big room with banks of filing cabinets to each side. Down the middle there was a row of desks, all empty except one. Monday was evidently a slack day for the paper. The library’s sole occupant, an elderly man whom she took to be Bill, looked up interrogatively from the newspaper he was reading. ‘Yes, miss?’ he asked. When Loretta gave her name, he thought for a moment, then his brow cleared. ‘Ah yes, miss, you’ll be wanting the cuttings on that don chappie. I got them out this morning when Mr Tracey rang. Come with me.’ He led her to the last desk in the line, on which she could see a sheaf of pink sheets of paper. As she got closer, she could see that each had one or two articles from various newspapers stuck to it. “Fraid there’s nothing very recent,’ the librarian said. ‘What’s’e done this time, committed a murder?’ The man chuckled at his own joke.

  Loretta forced a smile, and judged it better not to answer. ‘Is it all right for me to sit here?’ she asked.

  ‘Help yourself,’ said Bill, ambling back to his own desk and a waiting copy of the Morning Star. ‘By the way, try and keep ‘em in order, miss,’ he added, over his shoulder. ‘Newest on top.’

  Loretta sat down and examined the pile. She had never been in a cuttings library before. How useful it must be, she thought, to have all this information on tap. But surely the library staff didn’t go through each and every national paper every day? Flicking through Puddephat’s file, she saw that they did. The top cutting was from the Sunday Times; underneath, she spotted items from both the Guardian and the Sun. It was an impressive collection.

  Returning to the top of the pile, she began to read the Sunday Times story. It came from the paper’s Atticus column, and was a couple of years old - it looked as if Bill hadn’t yet got round to filing the latest news on Puddephat. ‘Hotheads At High Table’, the headline said, and a faint bell began to ring. She went rapidly through the story, and remembered that she’d read it at the time. Puddephat had refused to take his place at a formal dinner to welcome the new master of his college because he had been placed opposite Dr Theodore Sykes, a fellow member of the English faculty. Indeed, Puddephat had scandalized other dons by storming out after claiming the place-setting was a deliberate insult. Puddephat’s anger, the paper said, could be traced to a most unflattering review of his new book, written by Sykes, in the TLS. The cutting went on to quote from the review, which had certainly been unusually savage: ‘puerile nonsense’ and ‘unmitigated twaddle’ were two of the phrases Sykes had used.

  When I rang Dr Sykes [the paper’s diarist had written] he agreed that the review was ‘a little harsh’, but insisted the whole affair was nothing more than ‘a storm in a port glass’. When I got through to Dr Puddephat, on the other hand, his language was refreshingly unacademic, and cannot, I regret, be repeated in a family newspaper. The ivory towers of Oxford look set to shake to the sounds of battle for some time to come.

  The missing don certainly seemed to inspire strong passions, Loretta reflected. She turned to the next sheet of cuttings, and began to read an article from the Sun. Loretta would have guessed its origin even if the paper’s name had not been stamped on the cutting. ‘Warning For Death-case Egghead’, said the headline mysteriously.

  Oxford don Hugh Puddephat has been given an official warning by college bigwigs - go easy with the girls [Loretta read].

  The warning occurred after Puddephat’s name came up at the inquest into the death of an attractive flame-haired student, Melanie Gandell.

  Puddephat, 37, has been told to watch his step after the girl, a 19-year-old first-year student at the college where he teaches, committed suicide. She mentioned the dashing don in a note found in the room where she took an overdose of pain-killers.

  A tight-lipped college spokesman yesterday denied there was evidence of an improper relationship between the two. But he admitted that the college’s boss, Professor James Lorimer, had spoken to Puddephat ‘to reiterate the need for constant vigilance on the part of teaching staff when dealing with impressionable adolescents’.

  Puddephat, who is separated from his glamorous blonde wife Veronica, was not available for comment yesterday. Reporters were turned away from the college, where he has lived since the break-up of his marriage, by the porter, Mr Des Koogan, a former army boxing champion.

  Loretta’s interest was caught. She turned to the next cutting in the hope of finding a less lurid account of the case. The article was not a news report, however, but one of those background features that appear on the women’s pages of quality newspapers after some well-publicized court case. It bore the name of a celebrated woman journalist and was headlined ‘A Don’s Dilemma’. On further examination, it turned out to be a sympathetic discussion of the pitfalls facing university teachers when their students become too attached to them. Puddephat and Melanie Gandell were mentioned in the first paragraph, but did not appear in the rest of the piece. It was composed, in fact, of quotes from lecturers identified on
ly by their first names, who recalled difficult situations they had - quite innocently - got into. And what about female teachers? Loretta thought indignantly, noting that all the interviewees were male. Doesn’t it happen to us?

  She passed on to the next sheet. It turned out to be a cutting from the Guardian, and contained much that she wanted to know. The inquest had taken place three years ago in Oxford, which explained why Loretta didn’t remember the case: she had been in the middle of a six-week working holiday in Italy when it happened, writing a lengthy paper on women’s fiction from 1900 to 1930. She had seen English newspapers only on odd occasions when friends, or her then lover, came out to visit her. The facts of the case were simple. The girl, who was reading English at Puddephat’s college - one of the first women students there, in fact - had been found dead in her room just before the end of the summer term. The suicide note was mentioned, but not quoted; Loretta wondered if it had not been read out at the inquest. It did not seem likely that the Sun, at any rate, would have felt any qualms about printing it in full. Puddephat had given evidence, saying Melanie Gandell had been one of his brightest students, and he had gone out of his way to encourage her academically as a result. He blamed himself for crediting her with a maturity she did not possess, and regretted that his attempts to assist her studies had been so tragically misinterpreted by her. He had never thought of trying to foster an attachment which he would have considered quite improper. The coroner passed a few remarks in his summing-up on the heavy responsibility shouldered by those placed in loco parentis, but accepted that the girl’s affections had been aroused unintentionally. The verdict, inevitably, was one of suicide.