Loretta Lawson 01 - A Masculine Ending

by Joan Smith

  At the very bottom, her fingers touched what felt like a photograph. Drawing it out, she found herself looking at a face which was striking both for its good looks and its expression of surprise. The boy in the photograph, whose age could have been anywhere between fifteen and twenty, was staring at the camera with startled eyes. The photo had been taken indoors and in poor light: the boy was sitting at a table, his head resting on one hand, a candle flickering nearby. From the objects visible on the table, Loretta guessed the occasion was some sort of supper party. Perhaps he had been caught unawares by a flashgun? She wondered who the boy was. One of Puddephat’s students? It really was hard to tell his age from a black and white photograph. Whoever he was, his looks were almost, but not quite, pretty. His fair hair was parted on one side, and a lock of it fell across his forehead. His large eyes might have been girlish had it not been for his unusually heavy eyebrows. There was certainly a homoerotic quality about him, and Loretta remembered what Bridget had said about Puddephat’s interest in young men. At the same time, she recognized that the photograph was exerting a considerable pull on her own imagination. Where, she wondered, did the boy’s own inclinations lie? She shook her head and returned the picture to the bottom of the drawer. She had no evidence to connect the boy with Puddephat’s disappearance, and she was wasting time. In any case, she would know the face again if she came across it. The next drawer was full of scribbled notes on A4 paper, lecture notes by the look of them. She tried the third.

  Suddenly Bridget erupted into the room, calling Loretta’s name in a terrifying loud whisper. ‘Look at this!’ she hissed. ‘I found it among his socks. Sickly yellow ones, by the way.’ Loretta looked at her in bewilderment. Bridget was holding a sheet of writing paper. It dawned on Loretta that the latter half of Bridget’s remark had been to do with Puddephat’s taste in footwear, not the object she was holding.

  Loretta took the single sheet of paper from her. The thick creamy vellum was covered in a large black scrawl. The writer appeared to have been so anxious to commit the message to paper that the conventional opening had been dispensed with.

  I am so angry I can hardly write [it began, and there was ample evidence in the shaping of the letters that this was indeed so]. Your suggestion last night was just about the most obscene thing I have ever heard. How could you do this to me? Since your skin is clearly thicker than even I had supposed, I am writing to make sure there is no misunderstanding between us. The answer is no, no no. Not now, not ever. I never believed I could wish anyone dead, but last night changed all that. Stay away from me, do you understand? I want nothing to do with you. If hell existed, it would be too good for you.

  The letter was signed, with an abruptness that matched its content, simply ‘R’. Loretta’s mind went straight back to the boy in the photograph. Had her surmise been correct? Had Puddephat provoked this storm by propositioning the boy? She found it hard to believe, in this day and age, that anyone would react with such loathing to a homosexual advance. On the other hand, if it came unexpectedly, and from an admired authority figure, the boy’s tutor perhaps, might it not seem like a betrayal of trust?

  ‘Well!’ she heard Bridget exclaim impatiently. ‘Say something! It must be a clue. Somebody hated Puddephat enough to kill him!’

  ‘I wonder,’ Loretta said hesitantly. She did not want to show Bridget the photograph, and was angry with herself for this uncharacteristic piece of selfishness. After all, it was Bridget’s doing that she was here at all. Her sense of fair play won. ‘I think it might be connected with this,’ she said, reaching into the top drawer for the picture and handing it to Bridget.

  Her friends’s reaction was less intense than Loretta’s had been. ‘Nice-looking kid,’ she said. ‘But what’s he got to do with the letter?’

  ‘He could be R,’ Loretta pointed out unwillingly.

  Bridget held the picture at arm’s length and studied it. ‘I suppose it’s possible,’ she said. ‘But does he look the sort of person who’d sign with just an initial?’ Loretta shrugged, took the photograph from Bridget, and put it back in the drawer. As she closed it, Geoffrey appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Any luck?’ he asked Loretta. ‘Apart from the hate mail in his sock drawer,’ he added, casting a disapproving glance at Bridget.

  Loretta recalled why she was supposed to be in Puddephat’s rooms. ‘Afraid not,’ she said. ‘No sign of my notes at all. It looks like I’m going to have to have a go at doing the outline again from memory.’ As she finished speaking, a very loud bell began to ring. ‘A burglar alarm!’ she gasped, frozen to the spot. Her mind filled with images of police cars, interrogations, court scenes.

  Geoffrey shook his head. ‘Stop panicking,’ he commanded. ‘If s only the fire alarm. I bet some silly bugger has set it off by accident. Usually happens at least twice a term. It doesn’t tend to happen in the vacation, though. Perhaps it’s a real fire at long last. Bloody rotten luck for us.’

  Already, above the din of the bell, Loretta could hear doors opening and closing, feet on the move above her head. ‘What do we do?’ she asked in a loud whisper. ‘Stay put?’

  ‘Too risky,’ Geoffrey answered, frowning. They check all the rooms to make sure no one’s slept through it. And we can’t risk being seen in this wing. It’s not as if we’re near my rooms. We couldn’t be further from them.’

  Loretta could see the only course of action open to them. She switched off the lamp and moved to the window. ‘I take it they don’t search the grounds as well?’ she asked, parting the curtains and throwing up the window. She climbed out into the garden and crouched close to the wall, waiting for the others to follow.

  Geoffey came next, grumbling in a low voice. ‘I hope you two like fresh air,’ he muttered, joining her next to the wall. Bridget was last, gently closing the window behind her. ‘We’d better go down to the stream and hide in the bushes,’ said Geoffrey. ‘At least I’ll be able to have a cigarette down there.’ He made a sudden dash for the undergrowth. Loretta followed, becoming aware that the grass was damp beneath her feet. Her cream shoes were far from waterproof, and already she could feel an unpleasant sensation around her toes. When she reached the bushes, Geoffrey was spreading his jacket on the grass between the stream and a weeping willow. He settled himself comfortably on it and lit a cigarette. She heard the sound of twigs cracking as Bridget came up behind her. ‘Come on, you don’t expect me to give up my jacket,’ Geoffrey exclaimed, in response to a disapproving look from Bridget. ‘I’m not Sir Walter Ralegh, you know.’

  ‘At times like this,’ Bridget said sharply, ‘I can see why I gave you the push after six weeks. You’ve got the manners of a pig. Now move over.’ Protesting, Geoffrey moved to one side as Bridget lowered herself to the ground. Loretta crouched on the grass, looking at her friend in surprise. She had no idea that Bridget and Geoffrey had ever had an affair. ‘There’s room for you as well, Loretta, if Geoffrey is sensible about this,’ Bridget insisted.

  Loretta perched herself uncomfortably on the very edge of the jacket. The sudden intimacy of the situation was rather unwelcome. She needed time to digest the idea of Bridget and Geoffrey having been lovers, even for a short period. Wasn’t he much younger than Bridget? She didn’t know Geoffrey’s exact age, but the gap couldn’t be less than five or six years. It might well be more. Suddenly the idiocy of these thoughts struck her. What on earth was wrong with a woman having a younger lover? Her reaction was a relic of her schooldays, when convention insisted that any potential boyfriend should have a head start of at least two years on the object of his affections. She blushed at being caught out in such unthinking prejudice.

  ‘Well, you can’t complain I’m not honest,’ Geoffrey was saying, his good humour restored by the cigarette which was now polluting the night air.

  ‘Far from it,’ Bridget conceded. ‘But you can take these things too far.’ They exchanged complicit smiles, and Loretta reflected that the end of the affair did not seem to have soured their friends
hip. She wondered if that was one of the benefits of a younger man. Her own affairs, always with men considerably older than herself, had not ended so amicably. She was not even on speaking terms with Anthony Swan, the Labour MP who had accompanied her to Paris three or four years before. And Tracey’s attitude to her tended to consist of affection heavily tempered with caution. She felt a sudden pang for John Tracey. He might have some ideas about what she should do next. And she would enjoy impressing him with what she had managed to find out about Hugh Puddephat so far. Which was, she congratulated herself, a not inconsiderable amount of information. There was his background: his marriage, his concealed homosexuality, his involvement, whatever it was, with the Gandell girl. Then, most significant of all, there was the letter from ‘R’. At the time of writing that message, its author had certainly been in the right frame to oust Theo Sykes from the role of chief suspect. If, of course, a crime had been committed. Loretta felt deeply frustrated. In spite of what she had discovered, she still felt nowhere near the heart of the mystery. Once again, she found herself thinking about the boy in the picture. Was he the author of the letter? She hoped not. He could be anyone - a friend’s son, or a nephew. He might even be Puddephat’s own son, she thought, her imagination suddenly taking flight. Not by his marriage, of course, but as a result of a teenage affair. It was possible, she thought, but not very likely. No, she could not picture Hugh Puddephat as the adolescent father of an illegitimate son. In any case, if there was an innocent explanation of the existence of the photograph, why had it been hidden at the bottom of the drawer? Her sense of its deliberate concealment was oveiwhelmingly strong - it had been placed out of sight, but in a place where its owner could easily put his hand on it. Why?

  During these deliberations, Loretta was aware that Bridget and Geoffrey were talking in low voices. Now Bridget broke off in mid-sentence and put her finger to her lips, nodding her head in the direction of the college buildings. A light had gone on in one of the downstairs rooms in Puddephat’s wing. A figure was briefly visible against the window, then the light went out. This performance was repeated in the next room along. ‘Checking everyone’s out,’ whispered Geoffrey. In silence, they watched the man’s progress along the length of the corridor.

  When the light went out in the last room, Bridget began to get up. ‘Thank God for that,’ she said.

  Geoffrey pulled her down again. ‘Not yet, idiot,’ he hissed. ‘He’s got two more floors to do. If we go back now, he’s bound to hear us.’ Sure enough, a light came on in the middle floor of the wing. At the same time, the first spots of rain began to fall.

  ‘Oh, no,’ moaned Bridget. ‘I can’t bear it.’

  Loretta watched sadly as damp patches began to appear on her cream linen suit. She could not have packed a more unsuitable set of garments for tonight’s escapade, but then no such prospect had even crossed her mind when she was leaving London. She shifted uncomfortably on the ground. Geoffrey chose this moment to propose a game of I Spy, an idea which met with so marked a degree of hostility from Bridget that he lapsed into silence.

  The rain cast a decided dampener on their spirits and, as it became heavier, Geoffrey was moved to make a mild complaint. ‘Lot of trouble these notes of yours have caused,’ he remarked idly to Loretta. Consumed with guilt, she looked questioningly at Bridget, wondering whether she shouldn’t tell Geoffrey the truth. But Bridget’s response was a slight shake of the head, and Loretta remained silent. If Bridget, who knew Geoffrey much better than she had realized, judged it better to conceal the real reason for their visit to Puddephat’s rooms, she would have to go along with her. It was another five minutes before her thoughts were interrupted again by Geoffrey’s voice. ‘Pleasant though this is, I think it’s time to call it a night,’ he announced, getting to his feet.

  ‘Are you sure it’s safe?’ enquired Bridget.

  ‘No,’ he replied evenly, ‘but my clothes are so wet my skin is beginning to take in water. If I don’t get into dry clothes soon, I’ll die of double pneumonia.’ Loretta and Bridget stood up to join him, bending and stretching their cramped legs to restore them to life. Then, for the second time that evening, all three of them made their way to Puddephat’s window and let themselves into his rooms. Geoffrey went straight to the door, and pressed his ear to it. ‘Seems to be clear,’ he said, opening it. ‘Most people should be back in their rooms by now. Come on.’ Bridget was in the corridor as soon as he stopped speaking. Loretta followed, and Geoffrey closed the door softly behind her. He led the way swiftly and quietly to the exit which gave on to the quadrangle. ‘Now to see if it was a real fire,’ he said with a grin, opening it a fraction. Loretta blinked; the possibility of a real emergency, rather than a false alarm, had simply not occurred to her. ‘No, we’re OK’, he said, after a hasty glance outside.

  ‘How d’you know?’ asked Bridget.

  Geoffrey flung open the door. ‘No fire without smoke,’ he announced, gesturing towards the peaceful courtyard. ‘Probably a fault in the alarm system.’ He looked at his two damp companions. ‘Brandy,’ he said firmly, ‘that’s what you need. Let’s go and drink to a life of crime.’ They squelched off in the direction of Geoffrey’s rooms and a bottle of Rémy Martin.

  Chapter 6

  The pile of messages that greeted Loretta when she arrived at her college just after twelve next day was a sure sign that the beginning of term was only two days away. Hanging her coat on the back of the door in her office, she observed the utilitarian nature of her surroundings with even more dissatisfaction than usual. She disliked the stark brick walls, and the aluminium window frame, never an object of beauty, had recently acquired the additional disadvantage of being jammed shut. She thought longingly of Hugh Puddephat’s rooms in Oxford. The Francis Bacon would have to go, of course, but it would be easy to find something more to her taste. A simple black and white photograph perhaps? She realized she was staring into space. The Puddephat business was exerting far too great a hold on her; she must put her mind to all the business connected with the new academic year. Her most urgent task was to arrange interviews with all the students to whom she was tutor. The first-years would be a mixed bunch, some bursting with confidence, others in need of a great deal of encouragement. The second- and third-years, who were already familiar faces, would make fewer demands on her; it was too early in the year for anxieties about exams. Looking at the messages which had accumulated in her absence she saw the folly of rushing off to Oxford so close to the start of term and felt faintly annoyed with herself. She usually enjoyed this part of the year immensely, but for once she was feeling quite unprepared for it. She would just have to forget about Paris and Oxford for the rest of the day and get on with some work.

  She started flicking through the messages, most of them in the handwriting of Mrs Whittaker, the secretary of the English department. There was to be a staff meeting the following afternoon, Loretta read, at which the new course on gender would be discussed again. She was outraged, guessing that the objectors had carried on their fight after her departure from lunch on Monday. It really was a bit much, she thought, to leave it until now to make trouble about the course. The first lecture was due to take place next week. And if the head of the English department wasn’t so ineffectual, he’d have told them so on Monday. She took out her diary and made a note of the time of the meeting. She was determined that the new course would not bite the dust because of a rearguard action by a couple of old fogies like Maurice Webb and Henry Hedger. She snapped shut the diary and looked at the next piece of paper. It was a request from a colleague: he’d be grateful if she could cast her eye over an article he’d written for a quarterly journal, by Friday if possible. Why couldn’t he have asked her earlier? Loretta wondered. Friday was, after all, the first day of term. She supposed she could fit it in, if it really was urgent. The next missive was a postcard from the college library, which had acquired a book for her on inter-library loan. Could she pick it up within forty-eight hours? Another piece of
paper simply recorded that Tracey had called the day before. He hadn’t explained what he wanted, or asked her to call back, but Loretta’s resolution wavered momentarily. It was just possible that he’d discovered something about Puddephat. Anyway, whatever he wanted, she was keen to ask his advice on what to do next. Her hand went out to the telephone, then drew back. She’d been neglecting her work for the past day and a half. Tracey could wait until the evening. She put the note to one side, and looked at the final message.

  Her heartbeat quickened when she saw that Andrew Walker had telephoned twice that morning, and would like her to return his call as soon as possible. Had Andrew found out what had happened at the flat? Calming down, she decided that this was very unlikely. Unless Andrew was lying, she knew from his own lips that the evidence had vanished by the time he arrived at rue Roland. That being the case, what did he want? It was only three days since they had spoken, and they were not particularly close friends.

  The answer suddenly came to her, and she smiled. The most likely explanation was her offer to buy him dinner in return for the loan of the flat. With term approaching fast, it was quite likely that Andrew was coming to London on department business, and had seen his opportunity to call in the debt. Well, she thought, nothing would suit her better. With Puddephat’s disappearance in the news, it would not seem odd if she made a casual reference to it over dinner. It was an ideal opportunity for her to find out whether Andrew knew the missing don, and whether Puddephat had ever had any connection with rue Roland. And all in the course of a social event that had been set up not by her but by Andrew. It couldn’t be better. She looked up Andrew’s number in her address book, hoping he was not already on his way to London.