Party Girls Die in Pearls

by Plum Sykes

  Oh, what a beautiful morning,

  Oh, what a beautiful day.

  Get yourself down to the ri-ver,

  Or Christminster’s boat rows away!

  “Moo!” said Ursula crossly, recognizing her voice. “I thought I was about to get bonked on the head.”

  “That’s the idea. Got you out of bed pretty damn quick, didn’t it? Fifteen minutes till the Freshers’ Eight meets in the porter’s lodge to run down to the river.” Moo, perky as hell and already in her college tracksuit and sneakers, regarded the polka-dot dress Ursula was still wearing from last night. “Super nightie.”

  Ursula rubbed a sleepy bug from her left eye and looked at her alarm clock: 5:45 a.m. already. “I’ll be there,” she said.

  “Good-o,” said Moo, jogging energetically across the landing to Nancy’s digs, where the door bashing started all over again.

  Ursula shut the door. As she dressed in her college tracksuit, she reviewed Otto’s peculiar account of Sunday night. The facts certainly added up to a nasty outcome for him: Ursula had, after all, found him passed out in the room next door to one that had contained India’s corpse, and he had freely admitted that he had spent most of the night in Dr. Dave’s rooms with India after he had left Wenty’s party and hadn’t seen anyone else up there that night.

  But, Ursula asked herself, how could Otto be so convinced that he had killed India if he couldn’t remember actually doing it? If it was in fact possible to forget that you had just murdered a very close friend, which Ursula seriously doubted, there was the question of the influence of drugs and alcohol. Although Ursula had no personal experience of acid, she had heard that it made the user feel as though he or she was hallucinating, not homicidal. Was Otto’s whole story in fact a nightmarish vision?

  And what about India? Even if Otto had spiked her glass of champagne with half an acid tablet, would she really, after the famous row with Wenty, have suddenly become infatuated with someone else? Her love life was complicated enough.

  Still, against all the odds, it appeared that Otto and India had spent the night in each other’s arms. Otto had the bruise to prove it. But that still didn’t convince Ursula his tale of murder was completely reliable. That perfect slit that Ursula had witnessed on India’s throat didn’t quite gel with Otto’s belief that he had killed her accidentally. It had been neat, clean, the work of someone who was careful and calculating, rather than the drunken mistake of a minor Austrian princeling. But why would Otto lie? If he was lying, was he protecting someone? If so, who?

  Ursula wrapped her cozy college scarf tightly around her neck. It would be freezing outside this early, and even colder down on the water. She quickly glanced in the mirror. Her eyes were still daubed with the eye shadow and mascara from last night, and her crimped hair had turned into a mad-looking bird’s nest. With time running short, she hurriedly wove it into two scruffy plaits and stepped out onto the landing. Despite having had only a couple of hours sleep, her excitement about her first Oxford rowing session energized her. Sunrise on the river would be magical.

  “Hey!” Nancy was already outside Ursula’s room waiting for her.

  “Wow,” Ursula exclaimed as she took in her friend’s rowing costume. There really was no other way to describe the outfit as anything other than a costume, she thought.

  “Thank you,” said Nancy proudly. “I was really worried about looking appropriate.”

  Nancy’s “appropriate” rowing costume consisted of the following: a dark green blazer with red grosgrain trim and the Christminster coat of arms embroidered on the breast pocket, a starched white button-down shirt, a striped college tie, and a dark green pleated gymslip skirt. Her knee-high socks were, of course, knitted in college colors, and her feet were clad in white puffy high-top sneakers. She looked like a St. Trinian’s girl who’d got lost in a hip-hop video.

  The girls clattered down the staircase and across Great Quad towards the porter’s lodge. It was just starting to get light, but the day was disappointingly gray. Portentous iron-black clouds were gathering above, and Ursula could already feel fat drops of rain plopping onto her cheeks.

  “I cannot believe what happened last night,” said Nancy as the girls walked. “Otto seemed so nice when we met him that first morning. But on America’s Most Wanted it’s always the cute, quiet ones who turn out to be homicidal maniacs.”

  “We need to keep our options open. I think that Otto thinks that he killed India, but I’m not certain he did,” said Ursula, elaborating on her doubts about Otto’s tale.

  Suddenly the rain droplets became a downpour, and they sprinted as fast as they could to the shelter of the gate tower. From the other direction, Mrs. Deddington, head down against the weather, was dashing with a tray of tea from the Kitchen Quad. By the time she was under cover, her brown frock was limp and the two cups of tea and pile of Marmite on toast on the tray were spotted with rain and had lost any allure they might once have had.

  “What a waste,” sighed the scout, heading into the porter’s lodge.

  “Oh no, Marmite’s always delicious . . . Mmmm,” Ursula volunteered.

  She and Nancy followed the Marmite’s aroma, and Mrs. Deddington, inside. There they found Alice, dusting industriously while chatting to Deddington and his son, who were swapping shifts. Mrs. Deddington placed the tray on the porter’s counter.

  “What is that stuff?” asked Nancy, contorting her face at the sight of the dark brown substance on the toast.

  “Only the most scrummy thing in the entire world,” said Ursula. “You have to try it.”

  “Miss Feingold, if you come down to the scouts’ mess at five o’clock, I’m sure Mrs. Deddington will make you some Marmite on toast to try, won’t you, Linda? Miss Flowerbutton, come along as well,” said Alice.

  Mrs. Deddington put her hands on her hips and huffed.

  “Come on, Linda,” Alice cajoled her. “It’s nice to have the students down for tea sometimes. We all need cheering up, don’t we, after yesterday.”

  “True,” she sighed. “But only for five minutes, mind. I’m busy today.”

  “See you later, Mum,” said Nick, gulping down his tea. He pecked his mother on the cheek, picked up his bag of textbooks in one hand, a wilted piece of toast in the other, and disappeared. Deddington, meanwhile, took up his position behind the desk, nodded hello to the girls, and tucked into his toast.

  “I’ll drop your kilts off in your room this morning,” Alice told Ursula. “They look lovely now they’re short.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Ursula was delighted. “I can wear one on my date tonight—”

  “Date! Date?” interrupted Nancy. “What? Who?”

  “Shhhh!” said Ursula. “I’ll tell you later.”

  The Freshers’ Eight—which, apart from Ursula, included Moo, Claire Potter, and five other young women who had arrived in dribs and drabs over the last few minutes—was finally gathered in its entirety. A Second Year girl soon appeared and started barking at them officiously.

  “Right! My name is Eleanor! Thompson! I am the president of the Christminster Boat Club!” shouted the girl, who was dressed in skintight cycling shorts and a college tracksuit top. Her hair was scraped into a tight bun, revealing a stern, plain face, and her muscular thighs, Ursula noted, bulged intimidatingly, like two prize marrows at a country fete.

  “Remember! You’re a team! From now on,” Eleanor continued, “everyone needs to pull their weight. Literally. If one of you pulls her oar at the wrong time, you’re all in the water. It’s down to your cox to tell you when to pull. Make sure you listen to her. Respect her.”

  The team nodded obediently. Then Eleanor asked, “Which one of you is the cox anyway?”

  No one said anything. Ursula looked round. Nancy was staring dejectedly at her empty pigeonhole. Ursula nudged her.

  “Nancy,” she hissed, “you’re needed.”

  “Nothing from Next Duke,” her friend said, disconsolate. She turned from her pigeonhole to Eleanor
. “I’m Nancy, the Freshers’ cox. Hey.”

  “I might have known,” said Eleanor, scrutinizing Nancy’s outfit disapprovingly. “Right, Coach is meeting us down at the boathouse. Let’s go.”

  Just as the girls jogged out of the college gates, a bellowing crack of thunder delivered another torrent of rain. Pelted by the harsh weather, Ursula and Nancy jogged behind Claire Potter down Christminster Lane. Ursula hoped she could speak to Claire after the rowing session. She must know something about that doomed Sunday night. Perhaps from her seat close to the window, maybe eating ice cream, she had seen India dashing from Great Lawn towards the JCR staircase. Or could she have heard Otto professing his undying devotion to his Liebling on the landing outside the JCR? Might Claire have seen Dr. Dave in the quad, as Ms. Brookethorpe said she had? And what about Claire’s companion? Ursula knew that two ice creams had been consumed that night, and unless Claire had been extremely hungry, Ursula had to assume that someone else had eaten the second tub. But who? And had he or she seen anything? And, finally, what on earth had Claire been doing prowling Great Quad at one a.m. last night?

  The girls reached the corner of Christminster Lane, where they turned and jogged down High Street, past the spires of Magdalen College Tower.

  “So who’s this mysterious date with?” panted Nancy as they jogged.

  “Eg,” Ursula told her. “Can you believe it, he’s asked me out for dinner.” She still could not quite believe it herself.

  “Oh my God, he is so hot. Do you have a crush on him?”

  Before Ursula had a chance to answer, Eleanor Thompson shouted from behind them. “Stop gabbing, you two, and get a move on!”

  Ursula watched with awe as Nancy sprinted forward and easily overtook the rest of the Freshers’ Eight. She was a superb runner and now seemed oblivious to the drenching she and the other Freshers were experiencing. Ursula’s own tracksuit was soaked through, and her plaits soon resembled two drowned worms. Her feet squelched in her Green Flash. Her toes were becoming numb. But she refused to let her enthusiasm be dampened. As she followed the team along a track by the river, Ursula found herself captivated by its (very) damp charm. Rain droplets bounced brightly off the water. The fingerlike fronds of drooping ash and weeping willow trees swept the surface. When the girls jogged past a herd of Highland cattle grazing the riverbank, Ursula felt as though she’d stepped into a scene from a picture postcard.

  Thank goodness! she thought, winded, as the white-painted boathouses at last came into view. The girls trotted over a footbridge and finally caught their breath in front of the largest boathouse on the river’s edge. On this section of river, the widest part, it was already rush hour. Sculls were powering smoothly up towards the Head of the River, coaches were yelling instructions at different teams, and rowers were warming up on the quayside.

  The boathouse’s huge wooden doors were already flung open, and a fit-looking group of male rowers expertly hoisted one of the many boats stored there above their heads. Ignoring the pelting rain, they marched it out of the boathouse like a troop of soldiers and effortlessly deposited the boat in the water. “Your carriage awaits, ladies!” called one of them. Ursula had never seen so many dishy, well-built boys in her life.

  Minutes later, she found herself seated at the front of the boat, the handle of a huge oar hovering above her knees. Moo was seated immediately behind her. The rest of the girls filled the other six rowing spots in the boat, and Nancy sat facing them from the bow. Her right hand rested on the rudder control. Her left hand gripped a loudspeaker. Even though her usually bouffant hair now resembled a wilted pancake, Nancy looked thrilled with her new role.

  “Your coach today,” yelled Eleanor Thompson from the bank, “is Wentworth Wychwood. He’s a top rowing Blue. Please pay attention to his instructions. You’ll learn a lot from him.”

  Wenty? Oh no, thought Ursula. She couldn’t imagine anyone she’d less like to be bossed around by in a boat than Wentworth Wychwood.

  He soon appeared, sensibly dressed with a waterproof jacket over his Blues tracksuit, his hair covered by a thick black woolen hat. Though he looked worn and tired, Ursula couldn’t help admitting to herself, grudgingly, that he was terribly handsome all the same.

  “Morning, ladies,” said Wenty, flashing his beautiful smile at the Freshers, who responded, Ursula included, with a Group Swoon.

  “Coach, before we start, I have a really important question,” Nancy said, her voice reverberating loudly through the loudspeaker.

  “Yes, Nancy,” replied Wychwood.

  “It’s about Next Duke. The Dudley one?”

  “Nancy, please concentrate on coxing,” Wenty said, looking amused. “Ladies, please lift your oars so they are flat above the water.”

  The boat wobbled unevenly as the girls gingerly moved their oars.

  “I’m just wondering,” continued Nancy, “is he, you know . . . coming over to your rooms again soon?”

  “Doubt it,” replied Wenty. “He hardly ever leaves Merton. Except to go to chapel. He’s a recluse. The only reason he came on Sunday was because he’s had a crush on India since childhood . . .” Wenty suddenly stopped talking and seemed desperately sad. Ursula couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. After a few seconds, he managed to pull himself together and said, “Right, that’s enough small talk. Ladies, turn your oar at a right angle to the water.”

  Wenty expertly instructed the girls how to dip their oars in the water and pull them forward. Nancy was soon shouting “Pull!” at the top of her lungs through the loudspeaker. Timidly at first, the Freshers’ Eight dragged their oars through the water every time she made the command. Rowing was much more difficult than Ursula had imagined, and mostly the boat bobbed along like an ungainly bath toy. But the very occasional feeling of gliding that the girls achieved, even in the driving rain, was bliss. While she was out there on the water, Ursula felt energized and peaceful. But as soon as the crew returned to the boathouse, she was back on her mission, and cornered Claire Potter immediately.

  “Hi, Claire,” she said. “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Not really,” the other girl answered as she dried her hair with an old towel. “Ugh. I’m soaked.”

  “Claire, may I talk to you? About what happened on Sunday night?”

  “What about it?” she retorted, suddenly blushing bright red. She held the damp towel to her face as if to cool down her cheeks.

  “I’m trying to find out what India did after she left the party.”

  “What’s it got to do with you? The police are all over college investigating. Why not leave it up to them?”

  “Of course the police are investigating. But, it’s just, I’m supposed to be writing an article about it all for Cherwell.”

  “Why would I know anything about what happened to India?” Claire said defensively.

  Ursula was getting the distinct feeling that the girl had no interest in being even the slightest bit helpful to her, even after her apology. Still, she persisted.

  “Claire, your Crosswords and Ice Cream party was almost next door to the room India died in. Did you see anything? Hear anyone?”

  “I was very . . . er . . . occupied . . .” Claire hesitated. “. . . with the . . . um, function that night.”

  Why was she lying? Ursula wondered. After all, one of the few concrete facts Ursula knew about the night in question was that only two tubs of ice cream had been eaten at the Crosswords and Ice Cream party. It was most likely that Claire had had only one guest, and that was only if she hadn’t eaten the two tubs of ice cream herself.

  Claire now looked extraordinarily embarrassed. That’s it! Ursula deduced. Claire was lying because she was ashamed that her club had been such a flop. It would be cruel to confront the poor girl with her lies now, and anyway, Ursula might squirrel more information out of her by playing along.

  “How long did all your friends stay in the JCR?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Er . . . I’m not sure,” Claire st
ammered.

  “Did they leave before midnight? After?” Ursula went on.

  “It’s hard to say when you’re . . . occupied.”

  What on earth was Claire talking about? It was inconceivable that she hadn’t heard anything from the JCR during Otto and India’s tryst. After all, her virtually deserted party would have been extremely quiet. How could she have heard absolutely nothing?

  “Unforgettable, hello,” Wenty suddenly interrupted them.

  Ursula looked at him with amazement. How on earth could he call her Unforgettable now, after everything that had happened? Perhaps sensing her discomfort, he cleared his throat and said, “Sorry, I mean Ursula. I’m a mess . . . with everything that’s happened.” He sounded sincere. “Look, I’d like to talk to you. Privately. Would you allow me to . . .” Wenty’s voice trailed off and he stood looking at Ursula searchingly. A rather intense moment was abruptly curtailed by Claire Potter.

  “I know when I’m not wanted,” she said, stomping off.

  “Claire, wait . . .” Ursula called after her unconvincingly. But her teammate didn’t look back.

  “Allow you to?” replied Ursula slowly to Wenty, returning her attention to him.

  Wenty didn’t answer her immediately. He just let his clear blue eyes linger on hers for what seemed like forever. Ursula felt slightly giddy. Eventually, he said, “To buy you a . . . fry-up?”

  Ursula looked away from the boy and chided herself before she answered him. She did not need to start going all giddy on someone like Wenty. He was exactly the sort of boy to be avoided in Oxford. She already had a date for dinner tonight. She didn’t need a breakfast date as well.

  “Sorry, no, I have plans,” she announced, feeling very pleased with herself. Turning down Wenty was immensely satisfying.

  “Plans for breakfast? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I am not being ridiculous!” Ursula retorted.

  Wenty persisted, saying, “Look, I just want to talk to you, about India, sooner rather than later.”