by Plum Sykes
“No, honestly, I’ll be fine from here.” She smiled, trying to regain her composure. “Good night, and thank you for walking me back.”
Ursula had only taken a few paces when she heard Eg’s voice again. She flinched, on edge. What did he want now? It was so late.
“Anytime. In fact, I was wondering . . . would you let me . . . well, erm, maybe . . . take you out to dinner?”
Phew, thought Ursula to herself. If Eg was asking her on a date, the indications were that he wasn’t about to kill her now before she went to bed. Her relief that she was not about to have her throat slit was soon replaced by the ecstatic realization that Eghosa Kolokoli—the dishiest disco dancer known, as far as she was concerned, to womankind—was asking her to have dinner with him.
“Dinner,” Ursula repeated. The state of disbelief brought on by the word almost paralyzed her with delight.
“At Chez Romain? On Turl Street?” asked Eg. “It’s French. Very nice—”
Before he could continue Ursula blurted out, “I’d love to.”
Chapter 20
Ursula was desperate for bed, but the intense excitement of being asked on her very first date set her mind whirring. As she started to ascend the staircase, her brain bubbled over with delicious dinner-date-type questions: What would she wear? What would she and Eg talk about? Would they kiss?
She had no idea how on earth she’d get to sleep tonight after so much drama, but she’d have to try. In less than four hours’ time, she had pledged to be in the porter’s lodge to jog down to the river for her first coaching session with the Christminster rowing squad. She’d save her dear grandmothers’ parcel as a treat for tomorrow.
Only—what was that? Ursula thought she heard a strange sound coming from the landing above her. She stood stock-still and listened. The sound came again. Ursula’s heart thudded like a ticking stopwatch. Silently, she removed her shoes and inched, as quietly as she could, up the last few steps. Now it was clear the sound was a human cry, something like “Whhh-aaa-yyyy,” followed by hiccuping and loud sobs.
Ursula tiptoed up onto the landing between her and Nancy’s rooms. The sobs were becoming more intense, and were definitely coming from her friend’s room. Was Nancy having some kind of crisis? Perhaps she was terribly homesick for New Jersey? Suddenly the sobbing turned into a gurgling, choking sound. Ursula froze. Was her friend being strangled? Was there a killer on the loose in college, as Eg thought?
Ursula didn’t hesitate another moment. Heart pumping, breath suddenly short, she threw down her satchel, parcel, and the Scottish Historical Review and flung open the door to Nancy’s room, ready to take on an attacker.
The sight that met Ursula was bizarre. The column of light coming from the landing behind her illuminated a shadowy figure writhing madly on the floor while Nancy cowered on the bed, brandishing a hockey stick.
“Ursula!” she screamed. “Thank God you’re here. He’s gone crazy.”
Now you never know where things will lead in life. Being prep school leapfrog champion had seemed, to Ursula, to be one of those achievements that was not going to add up to much. Until now. Reptile-style, Ursula leapt upon the writhing form, squashed the flailing arms under her knees, and pushed its head to the floor.
The room was deathly quiet for a long moment. Then Nancy shrieked, “I think you’ve killed him. Oh my God.”
The body beneath Ursula squirmed. Then it said, “I am not dead,” sounding irritated. “But I wish I was dead. I deserve to die.”
Ursula instantly recognized the Germanic inflection. Otto. He started sobbing violently, almost toppling Ursula. She stayed put, not sure whether it was safe to release her captive. What had he done to make Nancy so afraid?
“Nancy, what happened?” gasped Ursula.
“He just burst in here, like, going crazy, hysterical, saying, saying—that—that—Oh Ggg-o-ugh-o-od.”
Now Nancy was blubbing. She wept as though the Trevi Fountain had sprung a leak.
“That he—he—hiccup—he—hiccup—thinks—said—but no! It can’t be.”
She collapsed on her leopard-print pillowcase, mumbling unintelligibly, while Otto squirmed beneath Ursula. He managed to crick his neck about halfway round so that she could see a bloodshot left eye, and croaked, “I know who killed India.”
Ursula slowly released her prisoner from her grip. After he’d wobbled uncertainly to his feet—he was definitely drunk, she thought—Otto brushed down his velvet smoking jacket and tuxedo trousers, and stood sheepishly, hanging his head.
“Otto, did you just say that you know who killed India?” asked Ursula slowly.
“Yes,” he rasped.
“But how?”
“How?” wailed Otto, gulping back tears. “How do I know? Because . . . i-i-i-it was . . . I think . . . it w-w-was . . . me.”
Ursula just looked at him, stunned, while Nancy elaborated: “He’s turned into some kind of lunatic. I thought he was going to kill me when he showed up in here, drunk and raging. Here, Ursula, tie him up,” she added, chucking her a yellow silk taffeta sash belonging to a ball gown.
Otto offered Ursula his hands, which she tied in embarrassed silence, knotting the sash three times before finishing with a huge bow. He sank dejectedly into the chair by Nancy’s desk, looking like a very strange birthday gift, buried his head in the yellow bow, and awkwardly blew his nose into it.
“Noooo! That’s Bill Blass demi-couture,” Nancy objected.
The misfortunes of Nancy’s party frocks were not uppermost in Ursula’s mind. Oddly calm, she looked hard at Otto and said, “Try and remember exactly what happened.”
“I lied,” he told her. “I lied to the police. When they questioned me today, they asked me when I last saw India. They were taking my fingerprints, my blood. How could I tell them the truth? I said I hadn’t seen India after she left the party. I told them I’d fallen asleep in the JCR, that I hadn’t seen her up there. None of it’s true! I thought I could pretend. But I can’t. I had to tell someone. That’s the trouble with being a devout Roman Catholic. You need to confess. I thought Nancy was the right person to hear me out.”
“Why?” Nancy looked amazed.
“You’re from America. You have so many murderers there. You understand them.”
“I so do not!” retorted Nancy crossly.
“Just tell us what really happened, Otto,” Ursula pressed him. “The truth.”
“It all started with Wenty. I knew that he wasn’t serious about India, that she was just another conquest to him.”
“Wenty doesn’t seem like your average douche bag,” protested Nancy. “He was just charming at his party. And boy, is he hot.”
“The good-looking ones are always the worst,” Ursula said. She wasn’t at all surprised to hear that Otto thought Wenty was a player.
Otto continued, “But I was serious about India.”
“You and India?” said Ursula, astonished.
“When she and I were Freshers, well . . . we . . . she was my First Love. There was this one fine autumn day, our first term. We took a picnic down to the boathouse and took a punt out on the river.”
Otto’s eyes slightly glazed over, as if he were back on the waters of the Isis with India, not trapped in a dorm room in makeshift handcuffs.
“We drifted lazily along. We drank port and ate wild boar pâté that I’d brought back from the Schloss. I told her I’d shot the very boar we were eating. It wasn’t true, but she was impressed—she loved to shoot, and that’s when she invited me to Bratters, shooting. I felt . . . elated. An invitation to a prestigious English estate! I knew my father would be proud.”
“Austrian parents sound so weird,” Nancy said in an aside to Ursula.
Oblivious to her comment, Otto continued, “There was a romantic moment. We floated beneath a weeping willow tree, and we kissed, touched tongues—”
“Eew! More than we need to know!” objected Nancy.
“That kiss,” said Otto, closing his
eyes, “was the most significant snog of my existence. It tasted very much of the wild boar. Perfection.”
Nancy’s face wrinkled with distaste. Ursula, meanwhile, hung on Otto’s every word for a clue.
“But that happiness I felt, our love—”
“She was in love with you as well?” asked Nancy skeptically.
Ignoring the question, he continued, “She told me everything. I was always there for her. I always hoped, one day, that we’d kiss again, especially after I skillfully shot a woodcock on that shooting weekend at Bratters. But she grew distracted. There were many admirers. She was some kind of Zuleika Dobson.* Only . . . uuu-gguu-uuh,” he gulped, “she is dead and her lovers are not!”
Tears squirted from his eyes.
“Otto, try and calm down. You need to tell us exactly what happened on Sunday night,” Ursula said.
“Something happened before that. It was last Thursday,” he sniveled. “India came to my room—our rooms are both in the Monks’ Cottages. Hers is—was—next door to mine. When we got our room assignments at the beginning of this term, I thought it was a sign . . . that we were meant to be together . . . Anyway, she was very upset. She said to me, did I know anything about Wenty and another girl? Had he cheated on her? Well, everyone had been gossiping that Wenty had got off with Isobel last term at the New College ball. I couldn’t not tell her what I’d heard—”
“Did you think it was true?” Ursula interrupted.
Otto hesitated. “I don’t know why anyone would say something like that if it wasn’t true.”
“But, to be clear, you never actually saw Isobel and Wenty make out?” Nancy pressed him.
“Er . . . I suppose . . . not . . . with my own eyes.”
“So how did India react when you told her this rumor about Wenty and Isobel?” said Ursula.
“She was infuriated. I don’t know what she meant, but India said, ‘She’ll see,’ and stormed out of my room.”
Nancy turned to Ursula and said, “Do you think India showed up at Wenty’s party with Dom just to spite Isobel?”
“Yes, and I think she’d been sleeping with him for ages,” replied Ursula. “I think this all goes way back to the summer, when India stole Isobel’s role as Ophelia. But perhaps India had decided it was time Isobel knew about her involvement with Dom. Otto, go on please.”
“From the moment she arrived at Wenty’s party, looking so stunning, on Dom’s arm, I could tell it was over with Wenty.”
“How did you know?” asked Ursula.
“It was in her eyes. Behind the sparkle, I don’t know, there was something . . . hurt. I knew India very well, you see. And then, later, Wenty came back after she stormed out of the party and asked for my help—”
“Your help? How?” asked Ursula.
“Wenty returned to the party in the Old Drawing Room sometime after midnight. He told me that he needed to speak to me ‘privately.’ We retreated to the bathroom across the landing from his set. It was just me, Wenty, and a couple of scouts who were washing up. He was pretty drunk,” Otto went on. “We all were that night. Wenty said that he and India had had an enormous row in the quad, and that he thought she had gone to find Dr. Dave. He wanted me to go up and see, bring her back. So I told him I would. But I didn’t mean it.”
“What?” said Ursula, confused.
“I sensed an opportunity,” said Otto slowly, looking ashamed.
“What sort of opportunity?” she asked curiously. Surely he didn’t mean he sensed an opportunity to kill India?
“It was my opportunity to have India. For myself—ugh-ugh-uggggg—” Otto’s breathing sped up and he started to sound hysterical, screeching, “I double-crossed Wenty! He thought I was his friend! He was my friend! But I wanted her too much! I didn’t care about him!”
For once, Ursula actually felt sorry for Wenty. His “friend” wasn’t exactly loyal.
“Otto, take a chill pill,” ordered Nancy. “What happened next?”
“I took a bottle of champagne from the bathtub, two more glasses. I had one acid tab in my pocket. I swallowed half. Kept the other half for India,” Otto told them, gradually calming down. “I was drunk, excited, tripping. I knew it was over between Wenty and India. It was my turn. When I reached Dr. Dave’s staircase, I called out for India. I heard a voice above me. Suddenly, there she was in front of me, a vision. A slightly blurry vision, I admit—I refuse to wear my glasses to black-tie parties. That white gown she was wearing, the pearls gleaming in her tiara . . . she looked marvelous. I think she had come out onto the landing, I can’t remember exactly, but I said to her, ‘Liebling, you are the most exquisite girl I have ever seen,’ and I took her hand. It was very romantic, gentle. I poured her a glass of champagne and put the half tab in it—”
“Did you tell her about the acid?” asked Ursula.
Otto looked hurt. “Do I look like the kind of sleaze-bucket who spikes an innocent girl’s drink?”
Ursula didn’t say anything. Whether or not Otto had told India she was about to consume half an acid tab didn’t really matter in the great scheme of things. The end result was that, by this point in the chain of events, India was under the influence of drugs as well as the alcohol she had consumed at Wenty’s party.
“Did you see anyone else on Dr. Dave’s staircase?” asked Nancy.
“I don’t remember seeing anyone else at all,” said Otto. “We went into the room almost immediately. We started kissing. She kissed me as though she had never been kissed before. We ended up on the sofa, and at one point I fell off it, my passion was so great. But it didn’t hurt. I felt as though I was floating, in a lilac cloud. I told her I loved her, that she was my one and only true Liebling. She said—even with my poor recall I can remember this as if it happened a minute ago—she said that she had never felt like this, ever. The joy I felt! I had waited so long for this! I sensed an invitation to her next shooting weekend would soon be forthcoming! And then I—ach mein Gott! I must have killed her after that.”
“Otto, no, you can’t have—” Nancy started.
But he interrupted her, saying, “I can’t remember anything after that. My brain must have blocked it out. The act. The horror. I just remember waking up in the JCR and thinking Ursula was my Liebling.”
“Otto, are you sure you’re not imagining things?” she protested. “You were horrified when I showed you her body. You were so shocked you were sick—”
“Of course I was! I couldn’t believe what I had done.”
“There was no blood on your clothes. How could you have killed her like that and not had any blood on you?”
“I have proof. Physical proof.”
“You do?” said Nancy, looking uneasy.
“Undo my trousers!” ordered Otto.
“Oh Jesus, he’s totally lost it,” Nancy bawled at Ursula.
Otto started fumbling awkwardly with his flies, despite his silken handcuffs, and his trousers fell to the floor, revealing a bony, pale pair of legs. He was wearing white underpants.
“Look!” he said, gesturing at a huge purple splodge of a bruise on his hip. “You can’t deny it. The fall from the sofa did this. It all happened. I did it. I was with her all night. I was the only person up there. I would have seen something if someone else had done it. Or heard something. It was, maybe, a terrible accident.”
The girls stared at the bruise, speechless. There was no denying Otto’s physical evidence. And, when she really thought about it, Ursula felt that his behavior on Monday morning, after seeing India’s body, had been pretty peculiar, veering from one emotional extreme to the other.
“I need to tell the police the truth. And then they can hang me. With my Liebling gone, I couldn’t care less about dying. Bring me to the noose.”
“Otto, the death penalty was abolished here twenty years ago,” Ursula reminded him.
“How inconvenient,” he wailed. “Regardless, first thing, I’m turning myself in.”
“Otto, don’t do any such
thing,” Ursula ordered the boy.
“You can help me?” he said, sounding desperate.
“I don’t know yet. Just go to your room, get some sleep, and don’t say another word to anyone. Especially not the police.”
* * *
It was around three in the morning by the time Ursula finally shut the door to her room, switched on the bedside lamp, and sat on the bed. She was exhausted, but sleep seemed impossible after Otto’s confession. Perhaps unwrapping the parcel from her grannies would calm her nerves. She smiled as she examined the contents: a bar of Kendal Mint Cake from Plain Granny, a bottle of Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche perfume from Vain Granny, and two letters, one from each of them. News from the farm! How comforting the idea of home seemed now. Ursula lay back on her pillows and began to read Plain Granny’s letter.
Dearest Ursula—
In haste as sheep are out—miss you dreadfully. Without you house feels like a roly-poly pudding without the jam filling. Your old teddy bear Huggle very forlorn sitting on your bed all alone. Farm busy as ever, although chickens have stopped laying in protest at your departure. Making mountains of jam, blackberries this year are . . .
But Ursula was asleep, still in her party dress, dreaming of Seldom Seen Farm.
Chapter 21
Tuesday, 1st Week: Morning
Someone was hammering on Ursula’s door. It was a brutal awakening from the heavenly jam-roly-poly-and-teddy-bears dream she was right in the middle of. Ursula sat bolt upright on her bed. The room was pitch black. The hammering intensified. It sounded as though someone was trying to bash her door down. There was nothing for it. Petrified, Ursula leapt from her bed and yanked her door open, simultaneously managing to hide behind it as she wondered who this could be.
Light from the landing illuminated something protruding into the room. Ursula heard the squeak of sneakered feet crossing the threshold. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized that the object in silhouette was a large wooden oar. It prodded the bed, as though searching for someone. Suddenly the most bizarre thing happened. The sound of singing filled the room: