by R. J. Amos
‘Bit of a different kind of conference, wasn’t it? There was something up that night, not natural at all.’
That was interesting. Robbie thought that the death was strange too. Or he was just trying to look important. I am never sure with Robbie.
I tried to figure out a way to ask what I wanted to know without looking too forward. But I couldn’t, so I just came straight out and asked.
‘Do you think that Prof Conneally was having an affair?’
‘Seriously? Who would he be having an affair with?’
‘Well, perhaps Lisa?’
Robbie scoffed, ‘Who has been saying that BS? That’s daft.’
‘She’s a good looking girl, and you have to admit, she dresses to impress ...’
‘Nah, that’s just normal if you don’t come from a backwater like this.’ I reminded myself not to take offence – you just couldn’t when it came to Robbie, you had to let it go. ‘She’s not anything out of the ordinary if you ask me. And Conneally is far too busy to have time to do anything like that. His wife was always at the conferences with him, always came to the dinners with him. Nope, just can’t see it, myself. Total crap.’
I tell you what, this detective business is not good for the self-esteem. But I hid my disappointment. After all, Robbie was just a bloke. He might have missed the signals. I would try to find Lisa herself and see how she was. If she was having an affair then her grief should be obvious. There were always other avenues for investigation.
Robbie and I wandered through the market. He explained to me all the great places I should go and visit in Hobart, all the excellent things there were to do. I nearly reminded him that I lived here, and that I had originally told him about some of these places, but then I decided that it wasn’t worth it. I half tuned him out and enjoyed the atmosphere of the market.
‘Hey, do you want to join us for lunch?’ Robbie asked, ‘We’re meeting at that great fish place on the wharf, just a group of us. It’s a brilliant place – the fish is so fresh, caught on the day it’s served.’
I tried to think. Next on my agenda was finding Lisa, but I had no idea whether she was still in the state. Maybe someone at the lunch would know where she was. And this way I could get some idea of what other conference attendees were thinking. And, well ...
‘That sounds great,’ I said, ‘who wouldn’t want to be near the water on a beautiful day like this?’
‘It’s near the whisky distillery too,’ Robbie said with a grin, ‘that’s the afternoon’s entertainment – whisky tasting. It’s not a bad place here, really.’
‘Oh, so glad it meets your high standards,’ I gave the words a sarcastic twist. ‘I think it’s alright too, it’s only my childhood home. Who is coming for lunch?’
‘I have no idea – no-one is really organising it, it’s just happening. My group will be there but I don’t know who else. I mean, they don’t know you’re coming either.’
‘True, sometimes the best things happen like that.’
It all sounded really delightful – lunch by the water, whisky tasting, friends and company. I decided to relax and enjoy the afternoon. If I caught up with some more people and found out more pertaining to the case, then well and good. If not, at least I would have had a fun afternoon, and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. And I would be making more connections, which was necessary now that my big one, my big chance at Cambridge was gone. Maybe there would be someone there that would have a position for me. Why had I put all my eggs in the one basket? After Conneally’s offer I had just stopped trying. Which, as it turned out, was a daft thing to do. Maybe today I could make it good again.
The seafood restaurant was pretty busy when we got there but there was a table outside being held by a few of the guys and the number of people sitting there was increasing all the time as more conference delegates happened to walk past and get stuck in conversation, or just turned up like I had following an impromptu invitation to lunch. It looked like three or four people had decided to meet for lunch and then each of them had invited another three or four.
At one end of the long wooden table, was Professor Geoffrey Gray. He was my supervisor at my last job, the job I left unexpectedly and abruptly to go and attend my mum in her illness. He was the ideal person to talk to about another academic position now that the Conneally job had fallen through. He might have another place for me in his group, or at least have ideas as to where I should try next. That would be the place to sit for lunch to get closer to my goal of getting a job.
At the other end of the table was Lisa, and to my eye she looked a bit upset. Sitting next to her would get me closer to finding out who had killed Conneally.
I knew where the sensible place to sit was but instead I followed my heart and pushed my way through the crowd to Lisa, greeting Geoffrey on the way but moving ever closer to my intended target.
‘Lisa, how are you going? It must have been a very hard couple of days for you ...’
‘It’s been awful,’ Lisa wailed and yes, my heart beat a bit faster.
‘Were you very close to Prof Conneally?’ I said in my most comforting, come to mamma, lay out all your troubles, voice.
‘No, not especially,’ not what I expected to hear, my inner triumph turned to confusion. ‘I mean we work more with the postdocs than with the professors – it’s a large research group. I would count myself lucky if he would talk to me about my work one time in a month.’
‘Right ... so why has it been so awful?’
‘The problem is, I’m two and a half years through my PhD, so close to the finish and now I have no idea what will happen. Can I still finish without a supervisor? And I was hoping that he would recommend me to some potential supervisors for a post-doctoral position but now he can’t. What do I do now? How will I get people to notice me?’
Wow. This was not the grieving lover that I expected. I was stunned by her take on the situation. Did no-one else exist in the world? Did the world really revolve around her? She had not thought at all of Mrs Conneally, she wasn’t even worried about the other students in her ‘large research group’. I adjusted my tone to sound more like an advisory colleague than a comforting aunt.
‘Yeah, it’s a strange situation. It’s not normal for someone to pass away suddenly like this. I’m sure someone can work it out for you though.’
‘Oh I really hope so. I can’t stop thinking about it.’
‘Have you talked to any of the other professors at the conference?’
‘Well, Professor Brasindon did come to see my poster. We had quite a long talk about my work, actually. Maybe I’ll try to contact him.’
‘I’d wait a little while though.’
‘Really?’ it took a little while for her to grasp that it might be insensitive to immediately go supervisor shopping a couple of days after your own has suddenly died but eventually she came around.
‘It might be too soon, I guess I can email when I get back home.’
Grateful that Lisa could see a little of someone else’s point of view, I tuned out the chatter of the happy group at the table and tried to get over my disappointment. It was pretty obvious that Lisa wasn’t having any kind of relationship with Professor Conneally – let alone a romantic one. And wasn’t it amazing how people could get on with their own little lives, caring so little for those around them? I didn’t want everyone to be prostrated with grief for months, but this happy chatter was so out of tune with what just happened the other day. People were incredible in their ability to box things – to not let one thing spill into the next. Looking at the crew at the table you would think that they were all here on holidays, for the express purpose of enjoying themselves.
And so they were, I reminded myself. They were done with the conference and did not know the professor more than slightly. They didn’t need to solve the murder, they didn’t even think there was one. They were just making the most of a sunny day in a beautiful city.
But I felt differently. Whether it was m
y place or not, I had taken on some responsibility for finding the perpetrator of this murder and I wasn’t on holiday. I needed to keep working on solving the murder, which probably meant no whiskey tasting today. But I would finish my lunch and keep digging and see what information I could get out of this group – I had focussed on Lisa as the possible mistress in an affair situation. Was there someone else? Could this still be a possibility?
The best person to get this information from would be Mrs Conneally. I was sure that the police would have had a conversation with her, and I could have gone crawling back to Jan and Nate again, but I was sure that Nate wouldn’t tell me anything. And I didn’t really want to reinforce their thinking that I’m a lunatic with one idea stuck in my head. No, there had to be another way.
I stole a potato chip from my neighbour and entered back into the friendly conversation but the problem kept playing over in the back of my head.
When I got home that night and wrote in my journal, I really had to laugh at myself. Was I really thinking that Lisa would break down during a very public lunch? That she would be all ‘I’m so heartbroken, I don’t care who knows anymore, I just lost my lover and I want to tell the world’. And instead she’s all ‘Man, someone has died and it has really stuffed my career. What am I going to do now to get things back on track. How inconvenient.’ And she was so open about it, and not thinking at all about Professor Conneally’s wife or the fact that he might have other friends and family.
But we don’t really see much of that, do we? When we look at professors all we see is the research they are doing. When we think about professors it’s only in relation to their work, we don’t expect any personal life at all. And they feed that feeling. Some of them work 80 hour weeks, most work over 60 hours, they take work home, they work weekends. So many marriages fall apart because the husband is all about the job. (I don’t know whether female professors are also this one-eyed. I honestly don’t know that many female professors.)
And the huge work load is actively encouraged by the universities – do more research, get more funding, publish more papers, and then you’ll ‘make it’. Well Conneally made it, I guess. He was looked up to and admired by everyone at that conference. But where has it got him? Dead.
If it was work-induced stress that killed him, that’s bad enough. If it was work-induced murder, then that’s really making a statement. Is the work worth it?
How did Mrs Conneally feel about all that work? Even if there was no affair, surely you would feel jealous coming second to a career? Mrs Brasindon seemed to see herself as part of her husband’s success. His rewards were her rewards. Her personality swallowed into his. Is that a good thing? Is that what we can hope for? What happens to Mrs Brasindon when her ‘kind, good, and generous husband’ passes away? Will she actually become a personality then?
Somehow I needed to find Mrs Conneally, and carefully, gently, ask her some of my questions.
Sunday morning rolled around as it always does. And, as I always do, I got up and dressed and headed to church. I usually attend a church nearby full of young families and fun music, but this morning I felt the need for stability, the need to be part of an old fashioned service, so I headed into Hobart to the cathedral. I love the old words of the liturgy, words that have been said week upon week, for centuries. In the major changes of life, it is helpful to know that there are some constants. And it makes me feel close to Mum when I think of her saying the same words, singing the same hymns.
I guess Mrs Conneally felt the same way about the service, or maybe (if she indeed was the murderer) she thought that being at church was a great way to get rid of her guilt, because to my great surprise, when I settled myself in my pew and looked around, there she was. It took a lot of effort to concentrate on the service knowing she was there – two pews up, just out of my reach. Actually, once I saw her I didn’t concentrate at all. I spent the whole sermon preparing what I was going to say to her afterwards. Rehearsing all my questions and her possible reactions.
I tell you something, she looked a right mess. Her hair looked like something the cat had dragged through the hedge backwards, her beige cardigan was pulled all wrong, and the tag was sticking up at the back. It drove me crazy looking at that all through the service and not being able to tuck it back in.
She cried to a greater or lesser extent for the whole of the service, pulling her hanky out of her sleeve and tucking it back in, over and over again. I wondered if I should go and sit with her and give her some comfort, but that didn’t feel consistent with what I was intending to pry out of her afterwards, so I just let her be.
At the end of the service I hung around, waiting for her to get out of her seat to leave. She took a long time, just sitting there. Maybe she was praying, maybe she was just trying to stop crying. But eventually she stood up and I approached her and introduced myself.
‘You don’t know me, but I was at the conference with your husband and I just want to say how sorry I am for your loss.’
She immediately gave me a big hug (only slightly awkward, no, I’m lying, totally awkward) and said how grateful she was for my kind thoughts. And then she started crying again.
She didn’t need any of my carefully prepared questions. It was like she was just busting to talk, she needed an outlet, she was just waiting for anyone to show the slightest interest in her and she would then overflow. She went on and on about how this trip had been so special because she was seeing where Alwyn had started his career.
I had to think hard at that point, who was Alwyn? But then I realised, he had always been Professor A. Conneally, never a mention of his first name, and if his name was Alwyn I could understand why he wanted to hide it. It didn’t suit him at all.
While I had been thinking that through Mrs Conneally had kept going. She said they had been going to head back to England via Townsville (Alwyn’s birth place) and then next year the plan had been to visit Wales and see all her special places (she had been born in Wales, you see).
It was a tap I couldn’t turn off. She told me all about their tourist adventures in Tasmania – Richmond (feeding the ducks and that gorgeous bridge), and Port Arthur (made her blood run cold but he had thought it was all so fascinating – he was curious, always curious), and Mt Field (such a funny name – is it a mountain or a field? But the waterfall was beautiful) and so on. She told me how devastated their friends would be and how she wished they had had children but they only had each other. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her now and she had nothing left in her life. But she was so grateful for this little space of holiday that they had been given – it was like a second honeymoon, she said, just him and her and no work, just for a few days, so beautiful.
If she had committed murder then all I can say is that she is a consummate actor. I don’t know what she was like before and it’s just barely conceivable that this was all an act put on to throw people off the scent. But the thing is, no-one (but me) thinks this is murder. If she had done it, she wouldn’t be thinking she had to throw anyone off the scent yet. No, I came away from that conversation convinced that she was a devastated widow.
I felt so sorry for her. And, to be honest, a bit stuck.
At home that afternoon I sat down with pen and paper to get my thoughts clear. I wrote a list to clarify where I was up to. I love lists, they make life so clear.
Prof Brasindon – no motive
Mrs Brasindon – possible motive but she would leave action to her husband, surely.
Mrs Conneally – no affair means no motive
Lisa – no affair and no motive
Some list, huh. It definitely clarified where I was up to. No suspects, no motives, no evidence of any kind. Nate and Jan were right, I was just going on a hunch and there was nothing to it. What was wrong with me?
It was clear, so clear, that there was nothing to this at all. My hatred for Brasindon had got in the way. My prejudice against well dressed women (who even knew I had that prejudice?) was blindin
g me. My grief was making my imagination run wild.
I closed the notebook and put on the TV. Tomorrow I would change projects. I would focus on getting myself a job. I would email Professor Gray and anyone else I could think of who could possibly offer me a position. I was done with this project. Oh, and tomorrow I would go crawling back to Nate and Jan and ask for their forgiveness and try to be friends again.
I was pulled out of a deep sleep the next morning by a strange sound. It wasn’t an alarm – no work usually means no need for an alarm. It wasn’t the rubbish truck. My sleepy brain was confused.
Eventually, and fortunately not too late, I realised it was my phone. Someone was actually calling me. Not a common occurrence anymore. I pulled myself together and hoped that I didn’t still sound half asleep.
‘Hello, Alicia speaking.’
‘Alicia, are you interested in doing some analysis for me?’
It was Dr Susannah Pinkney from the Chemistry Department at the local university.
Susannah had been my supervisor when I’d completed my honours year. She had been the one to start me off on this research career.
When I had decided to go back to work, Susannah was the one I had called on first. It had been sensible to look for work locally, if I could work in Tasmania then my accommodation would be taken care of and, you know, I like the place.
So a month or so ago I’d printed out a resume and cover letter and decided to head in in person and take my chances – starting with Susannah.
I’d walked past the laboratory where I had spent my honours year working in Susannah’s group. The lab where I had taken part in chemistry research for the first time, working over the summer break. I remembered how amazing it had felt to don the white coat and safety glasses and to break the ground on a new project, something that hadn’t been done before, something that was important – that would last after I was gone. That was the point of working in science – to do something helpful for mankind. ‘No matter how incrementally small the effect is,’ said the cynical voice in my brain. It was true, ten years into my career I wasn’t feeling like I had changed the world much. There had been no radical breakthrough, no amazing discovery, no Nobel prize. I had just added slowly and surely to the knowledge-base. But that was worthwhile, wasn’t it?