Loretta Lawson 01 - A Masculine Ending

by Joan Smith

  So Theo Sykes was already on the verge of benefiting from Puddephat’s disappearance, Loretta thought excitedly. She drew a red circle round his name on her mental list. But surely Sykes couldn’t have predicted this outcome? she objected silently. Not if he arranged it at the most awkward time of the year? a little voice rejoined. The coincidence was certainly suggestive. She wondered what excuse she might use as a pretext for calling on Sykes.

  ‘You’re a friend of Dr Puddephat?’, she heard someone ask.

  ‘I was just explaining to Michael here about your notes,’ Simmons interjected, to her relief. Lost in her own thoughts, she had missed the beginning of the conversation.

  ‘Not a friend,’ she said hastily. ‘I’ve never met him. It’s just that I’m planning to write a book which is rather in his field, and I wanted his advice. Unfortunately, I wrote to him in rather a hurry, and didn’t take copies of the notes I sent him. The photocopier had broken down, you see,’ she added, remembering her discussion with Bridget the night before.

  They always do,’ said the man to her right, nodding in sympathy.

  It was going rather well, she thought. ‘But it can’t be helped,’ she added brightly. She’d already found out much more about Puddephat than she’d hoped - she’d even got a promising suspect in the shape of Theo Sykes - and there was no point in banging on about her non-existent book outline.

  But the don sitting next to her was determined to help. ‘Have you tried Koogan?’ he asked Simmons. ‘He’s got keys to everyone’s rooms. You might be lucky,’ he said, turning to Loretta. ‘Your notes might be sitting on top of Hugh’s desk.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t want to put Dr Simmons to any more trouble,’ Loretta began, anxious to avoid taking the deception any further. But the matter was out of her hands.

  ‘Idiot!’ cried Simmons, striking his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? Tell you what, Loretta, we’ll go and see him as soon as lunch is over. No, I won’t listen to any objections. It really isn’t any trouble.’

  ‘Doubt if you’ll get much change out of Koogan,’ the don called Michael observed, and Loretta brightened up. It didn’t seem likely that the porter would turn out to be co-operative.

  ‘But it’s worth a try,’ Geoffrey insisted. ‘After all, what’s Loretta going to do if she can’t get her notes back?’

  ‘Happened to me once,’ said the man sitting next to her, the one who had been so understanding about the malfunctioning photocopier. ‘Not just notes, either. I asked my cleaner to post four chapters of my book on Roman agriculture and she left the envelope on a bus. Mind you, she had the decency to come and confess, and I got it back from the bus company. But I had a very nasty moment when she first told me.’ This cautionary tale produced a moment’s silence, as all those present contemplated the awful prospect of having to rewrite a large chunk of a book from memory. Loretta’s mind went off at a tangent. Would there really be any harm in having a look around Puddephat’s rooms? She might find another clue, even if it wasn’t the bloodstained dagger Bridget thought she was hoping for. Something, for instance, to connect Puddephat more definitely with the rue Roland flat. By the time the main course arrived - an unappetizing leg of chicken in breadcrumbs accompanied by boiled sprouts - Loretta had done a complete U-turn and was fervently hoping that Koogan would consent to lend them a key.

  As soon as lunch was over, Simmons led Loretta out into the quadrangle. Immediately, they heard raised voices and saw that the porter was engaged in an altercation with two men in trench coats. It looked as though the men had got no further than Loretta before encountering the college’s human watchdog. As she drew closer, she heard Koogan shout: you ‘eard what I said. Out! Out! The master won’t see you, and that’s final. I’ve got my instructions, and none of you newspaper people are getting into this college while I’m here to stop you. We don’t want none of you bloody vultures ‘ere. Out!’ He moved a step nearing the smaller of the two men, who happened to have two cameras slung around his neck. ‘If you don’t get off these premises forthwith,’ he added menacingly, eyeing the Japanese hardware, ‘I’ll smash your effing cameras for you.’

  The men exchanged glances and, apparently concluding that Koogan meant every word he said, stepped back into the street. The porter planted himself firmly in the aperture, presumably in case they changed their minds. Loretta turned to Simmons, feeling it was not an auspicious moment to trouble the porter with a sensitive request. But before she could restrain him, Simmons had reached the gateway.

  ‘Mr Koogan.’ he began blithely, only faltering when the man turned and bestowed a look of simmering fury upon them. It was at this point, Simmons said later, that he realized their request was bound to fail. But he plunged on. This is Dr Lawson,’ he said, gesturing towards Loretta. ‘She came to pick up some papers she sent to Dr Puddephat, and she needs them at once. Could you just let us into his rooms so she can get them? They are very important,’ he added plaintively. It was no use.

  ‘You must be bloody joking!’ snapped the porter. With that, he turned on his heel and strode into his cabin, slamming the door behind him.

  Simmons turned to Loretta and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, I made a right balls of that,’ he admitted frankly.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Loretta assured him, disappointed though she was. ‘It was very kind of you to try. I was afraid he was going to hit you.’

  ‘Oh, he wouldn’t do that,’ Simmons said dismissively. ‘Hitting a fellow counts as damaging college property.’ Loretta smiled, and put out her hand to take leave of Simmons. Instead of shaking it, however, he grabbed it and pulled her out into the street. Spotting the two journalists huddled together in conspiratorial conversation a few yards away, he hauled her off in the opposite direction. ‘Listen.’ he said releasing her hand, ‘I’ve got an idea. Puddephat’s rooms are on the opposite side of the quad from mine. They’re on the ground floor, and they look out on to college land. There’s a garden going down to a stream. They’re supposed to be a smaller version of Christ Church meadows. The windows are sash ones, dead easy to open. No one uses the garden much after dark. If you come back tonight, I’m sure we can open one of the windows and get in.’

  ‘But what if we’re caught?’ Loretta asked nervously.

  The master would hush it up,’ Simmons assured her. The college is getting enough unwelcome publicity already, without charging one of the fellows with burglary. Anyway, we won’t get caught. What d’you say?’

  Loretta wavered. She had intended to return to London that afternoon, but one more night wouldn’t make a great deal of difference.

  Simmons saw her uncertainty, and pressed home his advantage. ‘Ring Bridget and ask what she thinks,’ he suggested. ‘I bet she’ll tell you to go ahead. There’s a phone box across the road.’

  All right, thought Loretta, casting caution to the winds.. She’d put herself in Bridget’s hands. Opening her purse to look for change, she crossed the road to the phone box. ‘What shall I do?’ she asked, after explaining Simmons’s proposal.

  ‘I think you should do what he says,’ said Bridget recklessly. ‘In fact, I’ll come with you. You never know what we might find.’

  ‘I don’t like deceiving Geoffrey,’ Loretta said, feeling a twinge of conscience.

  That’s the least of our worries,’ said Bridget. ‘He’d be even keener if he knew what we’re really up to. Tell him we’ll arrive at his rooms at eleven o’clock this evening. There shouldn’t be anyone in the garden by that time.’

  Loretta stepped from the phone box, and passed on Bridget’s message.

  ‘Good old Bridget!’ exclaimed Simmons. ‘I knew I could count on her.’

  Loretta wasn’t so sure. Her trip to Paris had already involved her in an unsolved crime, very possibly a murder, not to mention withholding evidence from the police. Was it really wise to risk adding burglary to the list?

  Chapter 5

  The two women were slightly late in arriving a
t Geoffrey’s college that evening. There was no single incident that Loretta could pinpoint as the cause, merely a series of minor hold-ups; and Bridget had mislaid her car keys, causing them to set off a few minutes after the time they had agreed. Loretta speculated to herself that Bridget’s nerve was becoming a little less steady now that her own involvement in the affair was taking on a more practical aspect. During the course of the evening, while Loretta cooked couscous for her friend, they had somehow avoided any reference to what was to happen later. Their conversation had been unusually impersonal, in fact, and largely to do with work. Loretta was aware that she had consumed rather more Rioja than she had intended, certainly enough to make her glad that Bridget was driving.

  When they arrived at the college, it seemed even more forbidding than it had in daylight, and as she walked from the car towards the entrance, Loretta felt as though she were about to cross a threshold in time as well as space. She could imagine dark-robed figures moving silently along the stone corridors in place of the healthy young men and women she knew to be living inside. It was a scene straight out of The Monk, she told herself impatiently. She was too well acquainted with Gothic literature for her own good. Turning to Bridget, she sensed the other woman’s hesitation to be as great as her own. Firmly, she pressed the bell set into the wall beside the heavy doors. The incongruous sound of an electric doorbell brought her back to the present. The small door opened a fraction and a jovial face, decidedly not that of Mr Des Koogan, peered out.

  ‘Yes, miss?’ he greeted her cheerfully, his words wafting to her through a distinctive cloud of port.

  ‘Loretta Lawson and Bridget Bennett for Dr Simmons,’ she replied, her spirits lifted by the welcome contrast between the night porter and the irascible Koogan. The door opened to its full extent, and the two women stepped through.

  Loretta drew in her breath: at night, the courtyard was eerily beautiful. Drained of its colour, the central square of grass might have been a stretch of water were it not for the absence of reflected buildings on its calm surface. The stone buildings surrounding it seemed less solid in the moonlight, as if they might at any moment shimmer and disappear. Bridget’s hand in the small of her back reminded her gently that she was obstructing the entrance.

  ‘Enchanting, isn’t it?’ Bridget murmured as they set off in the direction of Geoffrey’s rooms. ‘It had the same effect on me the first time I saw it at night.’

  Geoffrey Simmons, Loretta quickly discovered, was quite unperturbed by the prospect of the night’s adventure. When they entered his rooms, in answer to his hearty ‘Come in!’ they found him sitting in the broken armchair, surrounded by books, his feet comfortably supported by a small wooden stool. ‘you here already?’ he demanded. ‘You must be early.’

  ‘We’re late, as a matter of fact,’ Loretta began, but Geoffrey was already in full flow.

  ‘Bloody second-year essays,’ he remarked, gesturing at the pile of papers in his lap. ‘Supposed to have marked them weeks ago, but never got round to it. Dreadful bunch. Haven’t got two original ideas to rub together between the whole lot of them. God, I hate teaching. Mind you, I expect much the same could be said about my second-year essays if I’m absolutely honest. I remember writing most of them with the assistance of liberal quantities of dope. Just as well I didn’t keep them.’ Loretta marvelled at Geoffrey’s composure. She wondered what it would take to make him even slightly nervous. He seemed to be expecting her to say something.

  ‘Sorry?’ she replied nervously to his unheard question. ‘I didn’t quite catch …’ Her words were interrupted by a triumphant shout of amusement from Geoffrey.

  ‘I knew it! You’ve got cold feet! Here - have some whisky. That’ll warm up the old bones.’

  Common sense and terror battled within her. Terror won, and she downed the proffered double Scotch in one go. At this rate, she thought, she was in danger of being found snoozing gently the next morning at the scene of the crime. Not that it was a crime, she told herself hastily. They would be on college property, and that was somehow different - not like breaking into a stranger’s house irrthe outside world. She was feeling better, if a little unsteady, already. ‘Tools of the trade,’ she heard Geoffrey saying, reaching into the top drawer of his desk. He took out a thin plastic ruler. ‘For the window-catch,’ he explained patiently as Loretta and Bridget stared at him. ‘How were you proposing to open it?’

  The two women exchanged guilty looks. They had not given the details of the break-in a moment’s thought, so keen had they been to avoid the subject in the course of the evening.

  ‘Bloody good burglars you’d make,’ Geoffrey said scornfully. ‘I just hope neither of you ever has to turn to a life of crime. I don’t suppose you’ve brought gloves with you, either? Gloves, fingerprints … get it? Well, I suppose the police have been through the place already. Let’s hope they’ve got all the prints they need by now.’

  Loretta frowned to herself, aware that Geoffrey was taking great pleasure in showing off his superior knowledge. Before she could think of a suitable reply, Bridget did it for her. ‘Not all of us have the time to watch videos of Minder every weekend,’ she said crushingly. ‘I’m afraid Geoffrey has other addictions on top of his predilection for cricket,’ she added, turning to Loretta.

  Geoffrey rolled his eyes dramatically and headed for the door. ‘Cheap, Bridget,’ he muttered over his shoulder, and strode off down the corridor, leaving Loretta and Bridget exchanging amused glances with each other. Bridget pulled the door shut and they set off after him.

  He led the way across the quadrangle to the wing of the college opposite his own. Once inside, they found themselves facing a glass door, which gave on to the college garden. Geoffrey turned the Yale lock and opened it. ‘It’s kept locked at night,’ he explained in a low voice. Loretta and Bridget stepped on to the grass; Geoffrey followed and shut the door behind him.

  ‘How do we get back in?’ asked Loretta, alarmed.

  ‘We’ll let ourselves into the corridor from Puddephat’s rooms,’ Geoffrey replied. He was pretty confident about his ability to get into the rooms in the first place, Loretta noted.

  He set off along the side of the building. The grass sloped gently away from the college towards what must be the bank of the stream he had mentioned earlier. Loretta could not see the water, but its course was clearly marked by the graceful trees, mostly weeping willows, through which a light breeze was whispering. For the second time that evening, Loretta felt a sense of unreality quite at odds with the purpose of her visit. It was the setting for an assignation with a lover, she thought, picturing a cloaked figure slipping across the grass for a brief and forbidden meeting. Not so much The Monk as Barbara Cartland. She told herself sternly that she must shake off this tendency towards romantic fantasy. It was a sure, if embarrassing, sign that she was feeling in need of a new lover. But now was not the time to worry about it.

  Geoffrey had stopped outside the fourth ground-floor window from the garden door - Loretta was relieved to observe a lack of lights in the rooms adjoining it - and was already slipping his ruler into the gap between the two parts of the sash window. He turned and grinned at his companions. ‘Hope it’s the right room,’ he said cheerfully.

  Loretta gasped.

  ‘Take no notice.’ Bridget whispered. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’

  After a few seconds of manoeuvring, Geoffrey gave a small cry of triumph. ‘Got it!’ he exclaimed. He pushed the bottom half of the window upwards and swung one leg over the sill. Bridget swiftly followed. Sweeping a nervous glance around the dark garden, Loretta joined them in Puddephat’s sitting-room.

  Bridget closed the window and drew the curtains together. ‘Best take no chances,’ she said. ‘Do you think it’s safe to switch on a light?’

  ‘Don’t see why not,’ replied Geoffrey, moving through the gloom to a desk on which Loretta could just make out the shape of a lamp. ‘We can only be seen from the river, and no one’s likely to be down t
here at this time of night.’ The low light of the lamp made them blink. Loretta looked around curiously, taking in the shelves of books, the beautiful - and obviously valuable - antique furniture, and the magnificent kneehole desk on which Geoffrey had found the lamp. It stood against one of the walls of the room. Loretta wondered why Puddephat had resisted placing it next to the window with its enchanting view.

  Geoffrey was speaking again. ‘You take the desk, Loretta,’ he instructed her. ‘It’s the most obvious place to find your notes, and you know exactly what you’re looking for. I’ll have a root in the bedroom.’ Bridget winked at Loretta and followed Geoffrey into the other room.

  It was by far the most sensible arrangement, since Geoffrey did not know the real purpose of their visit, but Loretta was seized with apprehension as soon as she was alone. What on earth was she doing in this stranger’s sitting-room? she asked herself. What could possibly give her a clue about what had happened at the flat in rue Roland? She had no idea what she was looking for. She forced herself to take deep breaths. Now I’m here, she told herself, I might as well have a look round. Approaching the desk, she was struck by the painting hanging above it. It was, she thought, a disconcerting choice for an object that you would have to look at every day. She would not be able to work with such a scene constantly before her eyes. It looked very much like a Francis Bacon, and an original at that. Everything about the room suggested money. Loretta wondered whether Puddephat’s fellowship provided an unusually large salary, or whether the objects were a relic of his marriage. She examined the desk, its surface entirely barren. Was Puddephat exceptionally tidy, or had he known he would not be coming back to these rooms after his trip to Paris? Tentatively, she opened a drawer on the right-hand side of the desk. At once, the illusion of order was shattered. Inside was a jumble of pieces of paper, the top one being a red demand for payment of a large telephone bill. Rummaging through, Loretta found receipts from restaurants, postcards from friends, the stubs of several used cheque books. She guessed that the contents of the drawer represented several months of the missing man’s life.