It was developing into a lecture, and Kathy interrupted. ‘How does Marion fit in?’
‘Ah, well, yes. Marion found all this rather fascinating. Too fascinating, really.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘It seems a little churlish to criticise her scholarship at a time like this.’
‘I’d appreciate a frank opinion; I believe you’re the world expert on this subject.’
Da Silva chuckled, letting her know he recognised outrageous flattery when he heard it, and didn’t mind in the least.
‘Marion was one of the brightest doctoral students I’ve ever had. She was extremely serious about her work, applied herself very diligently. She was quite passionate about her ideas. Rather too much so. It is a classic trap for a scholar to become too attached to a pet theory before all the evidence is in. Marion could be quite headstrong, and ambitious too, desperate to break new ground, achieve new insights. It sometimes made her rather extravagant in her formulations. I had to keep trying to rein her in.’
‘Can you tell me what her particular ideas about arsenic were?’
‘Oh . . .’ He flapped a hand, his sigh almost a groan. ‘She tried to extend what was probably just their ignorance about the dangers of paint pigments into a whole philosophy. She speculated that the Pre-Raphaelites cultivated a fascination with death, especially tragic, premature death, and that this was mixed up with their notions of romantic love and sexual freedom. Well, they certainly did have tangled sex lives, but Marion blew it out of all proportion. She was obsessed.’
‘It does sound ambitious.’
‘Quite impossible. Absurdly broad for a doctoral thesis.’ He leaned forward, punching the point home with his index finger, and Kathy saw another side to him, pugnacious and domineering. ‘She was wandering off into areas in which she had no expertise—forensic medicine, psychology, chemistry, you name it.’ He gave a snort. ‘The provisional title of her thesis was Sex and Death: A Pre-Raphaelite Discourse. You see what I mean?’ He spread his hands. ‘Somewhat melodramatic.’
‘But they were pretty melodramatic, the Pre-Raphaelites, weren’t they?’
He smiled at Kathy indulgently. ‘Well, yes, but Marion was writing an academic treatise, not a novel. That was our compromise title. Her first efforts were even more lurid—“lust” figured prominently, if I remember rightly.’
‘Was there much lust in Marion’s life, would you say?’
He held Kathy’s eye for a moment, then said, very deliberately, ‘I have absolutely no idea. She never talked about her private life.’
‘Did she have a job, apart from her studies? Some source of income?’
Again, he couldn’t say, and his mood changed, becoming impatient and bored. He checked his watch.
‘What were your movements last Tuesday, Dr da Silva?’
He frowned. ‘I was working at home. I’m preparing a paper for a conference in the States, and the deadline is coming up. There are too many interruptions here, so I stayed at home to get it finished.’
‘Was anyone with you?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
nine
The phone went as Kathy slid behind the wheel. Her heart sank as she recognised Nicole’s voice. ‘Oh, hi.’
‘You didn’t ring me back. How did it go this morning?’
‘Not too well, I’m afraid. It didn’t work out as I’d hoped.’
‘You sound harassed.’
‘Sorry, I’ve been flat out with this murder case, that woman who was poisoned in St James’s Square.’
‘Oh, is that what you’re on?’
‘It’s my first murder since I made inspector, Nicole. I’ve got to get it right.’
‘And you will, but you’re not giving up on this weekend.’
‘It’s impossible. I’m really sorry. I was looking forward to it.’
‘Sounds like you need a break, Kathy. Anyway, maybe you’ll have cracked it by tonight.’
Kathy sighed. ‘No way. Cases either crack in the first day or they go on for weeks. We’ve passed the golden hour; it’s all hard slog now.’
She rang off, and immediately the phone rang again, this time with the librarian Gael Rayner on the line.
‘Oh, Inspector, we’re under siege here!’ She sounded excited.
‘What’s going on?’
‘There’s a contingent of foreign press outside, trying to get pictures and interviews about Marion’s death. We’ve had to bar them from coming in. I try to tell them this is the London Library, for goodness’ sake, not CSI Miami.’
‘Do you want me to talk to the local coppers?’
‘Oh no, it’s all right. They’re rather dishy, actually. I probably will let them in to shoot a bit of film, but I just don’t want them to turn us into the London Dungeon or something. No, it was another thing I thought I should mention to you.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I’m really not sure if it’s relevant. It concerns one of our readers. It may be nothing at all, and I’d hate to make trouble unnecessarily.’
‘Gael, this is a murder inquiry. You can trust me to handle any information with discretion, but you really can’t keep anything relevant to yourself.’
She sighed. ‘Oh well, yes.’
‘Should I come over there?’
‘Maybe that would be best. But not in a police car with sirens, please. It might be best if you were to come to our service entrance at the back, off Mason’s Yard. I’ll meet you there.’
Kathy followed Gael’s instructions and made her way to the library’s back entrance, past wire fencing surrounding the compound of the builders that Gael had spoken of. The librarian was waiting there, and took Kathy to a small staffroom. Coffee cups stood on a draining board, and a few magazines lay on a table at which they sat.
‘Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee?’
‘I’m fine. What did you want to tell me?’
‘Well, it was when the foreign film crew arrived. It caused a bit of excitement in the library, and people went to the windows to see what was going on. And I happened to notice Nigel Ogilvie there. I was struck because he was holding his mobile phone up, although he didn’t appear to be calling anyone.’
‘He was taking pictures?’
‘Exactly. And then I remembered . . . I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind, that dreadful scene up in the Reading Room, when Marion collapsed. I’ve gone over it so many times, and now it occurred to me that there was something . . . odd. You remember that it was Nigel Ogilvie who rang for the ambulance?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was paying most attention to Marion, of course, trying to do what I could—nobody else had much idea, and I’ve done the first-aid course. But at some point I looked up and saw Nigel. I thought it was strange, because he was still sitting in his chair, while everybody else was on their feet. And he was holding up his mobile phone. I assumed he was calling for help, but when I asked him he appeared rather surprised, as if that wasn’t what he was thinking at all, but then he said yes, and made the call. This all happened in a twinkling, you understand, and I was much more concerned with Marion. It’s only now that I remember the odd expression on his face when I asked if he was phoning for help. I mean, what else would he have been thinking of ?’
‘Go on.’
‘I feel like a bit of a rat, telling you this. I’ve known Nigel for years, and he’s a very nice, quiet man, always with a friendly word.’
‘But?’
Gael gave a big sigh. ‘When I thought about it, I recalled seeing him with his phone out in the library before. Then I remembered another time. I was standing at the window on the top floor one day, about a month ago. It was lunchtime, and the trees in the square were bare. I noticed Marion on one of the benches in the central gardens, eating a sandwich and reading a book. And then I saw another person standing on the other side of the gardens. It was Nigel, and I thought he was behaving rather strangely, standing behind a tree, almost as if he was playing hide-and-seek, not w
anting Marion to spot him. But then I realised he was holding his phone out, and I thought he must be just checking his messages or something. Now I’m not sure.’
‘You think he was taking pictures of her?’
‘Oh God, I don’t know. It sounds so creepy when you say it out loud. I’ve probably let my imagination run away with me. I mean, he’s in publishing, for goodness’ sake.’
‘That’s probably not an absolute guarantee of virtue, Gael.’
The librarian gave a rueful grin. ‘I’m sure I’m wasting your time.’
‘Don’t worry. And you said he’s here at the moment?’
‘Yes, in the Reading Room. He seemed rather excited by all the fuss outside. I’ll show you the way, only . . .’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be very tactful.’
‘Thank you.’
But when they reached the Reading Room Nigel Ogilvie wasn’t there. Then Gael spotted his papers at one of the tables. ‘He’s probably in the stacks. I think I know where he’s likely to be. How are your heels?’ She looked down at Kathy’s shoes. ‘No, you’ll be all right.’
She led the way back into the narrow book stacks, and Kathy understood what she’d meant, for the floors were made of steel grilles.
‘This was one of the first steel-framed buildings in London,’ Gael murmured. ‘Very innovative for its time. Here . . .’
They turned a corner and Kathy saw Ogilvie between the shelves up ahead, his back to them. She nodded to Gael to leave and advanced on him.
‘Mr Ogilvie, hello.’
He turned, holding a book, a vague smile on his face. ‘Oh, hello! Inspector . . .’
‘Kolla. Sorry to interrupt, but I needed to check something with you.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Your phone, do you have it with you?’
‘Er, yes.’ His free hand strayed to his jacket pocket.
‘May I have a quick look?’
He hesitated. ‘Why?’
‘Just details. I’ll have to put it in my report. The type.’
‘Really?’
Kathy put out her hand with a smile and for a moment thought he wouldn’t do it. Then, apparently unable to think of a good reason for refusing, he reluctantly eased out the phone. She took it quickly and said, ‘Oh yes.’
She opened it. The controls were different from her own, and she made a few mistakes as she rapidly thumbed the buttons.
‘What are you doing? Here—!’
‘Would it have retained a record of your call, do you think?’ she improvised.
The question threw him for a moment. ‘What? I don’t know. Look, give it to me and I’ll try to—’
‘Ah, what’s this?’ There was an image of a camera crew in the square, seen from the Reading Room window. Before that an ambulance standing outside the library. She flicked back, stared at the screen for a moment, then looked up at Ogilvie, whose face had become very flushed. She showed him the image. ‘That’s Marion on the floor, isn’t it?’
‘What . . . I really don’t know . . .’ he gabbled. ‘Maybe, when I made the call, I may have pressed the wrong button. If you’ll just give it to me . . .’
‘This is important evidence, Mr Ogilvie. We’ll need this. What else have you got?’ There was a long silence as Kathy clicked back through the images. ‘Well, well.’ She pocketed the phone. ‘I think we need to talk about this.’
‘It’s nothing, it’s just—’
‘Not here. I want you to come with me to a police station to tell me all about it. And I want to caution you, that you don’t need to say anything, but . . .’
He stood in dismayed silence as she delivered the caution, then meekly followed her to the Reading Room to collect his belongings. As he gathered them up and fumbled them into his case, Kathy glanced across at Gael, who was sitting at her desk, surreptitiously taking it all in. Kathy gestured her over.
‘Ms Rayner, Mr Ogilvie and I would like to leave without drawing attention to ourselves. Could you let us out the back way?’
‘Certainly.’ She glanced at Nigel Ogilvie, whose head was bowed. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Fine,’ Kathy said. ‘Just fine.’
It was a short drive across Piccadilly to Savile Row and into West End Central police station, where Kathy arranged for Ogilvie to be shown to an interview room to sit alone for a while.
She wondered about phoning Brock, but thought better of it; he’d probably be tied up, and anyway, this was her case. She arranged for hard copies to be made of the images in Ogilvie’s phone, and sat down to study them. The earliest was of Marion sitting in the square, viewed from the Reading Room window, before she returned to the library and collapsed. Kathy thought about this, then went in to interview Ogilvie, accompanied by a young woman constable from the station. He sat up with a jerk as they came in.
‘Look,’ he began, ‘you’ve got—’
Kathy interrupted, face grim. ‘We’re not quite ready to begin, Mr Ogilvie. Just some housekeeping first. Your full name, address and home telephone number, please.’
He complied, giving an address in Hayes.
‘Do you own or rent any other properties?’
‘No.’
‘What about your work address?’
‘Surely . . . surely you don’t need to involve them?’
‘Just routine.’
She left again, to make arrangements for a search warrant for Ogilvie’s home and office, then returned to the interview room and switched on the equipment, formally opening the interview. She spread the pictures out on the table. ‘I’m showing Mr Ogilvie eight prints of photographs found in his mobile phone camera, all of which show Marion Summers before and at the time of her collapse in the London Library on Tuesday last, the third of April, shortly before her death. Do you agree that you took these pictures, Mr Ogilvie?’
He bit his lip, a pained expression on his face, pudgy fingers fiddling with the corner of one of the pictures. ‘This is extremely embarrassing, but it’s not what you think. I had no . . . bad intentions.’
He gazed at her anxiously, searching for some glimmer of empathy, and saw none.
‘They gave me this phone at work, you see—insisted on it, so that they could keep in touch. My publishing director loves phoning me at odd times with his latest brainwaves—during dinner, on the train, at weekends. I hate the damn thing, but I did find the camera quite intriguing, once I’d worked out how to use it. I thought at first that I could take pictures of pages from the books I was studying—I’ve seen other people doing that—but I found the quality not very good, and decided to stick to photocopies. But I did find it amusing to record incidents of daily life.’
‘Of Marion Summers’ daily life, you mean. Not your wife and kids.’
‘I don’t have a wife and kids. Marion is, was, a very striking young woman. I find most of the people at the library rather, well, predictable, but she was an intriguing mystery. She was very beautiful, like the Pre-Raphaelite women she was studying. I liked to speculate about her life, but in the most innocent way.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, I asked myself, did she have a husband? A lover?’
‘And did she?’
‘I don’t know. I never found out.’
‘Did you follow her home?’
He looked startled. ‘No.’
‘Do you know where she lived?’
‘No, no.’
‘How do you know she was studying Pre-Raphaelite women?’
‘Ah . . . I noticed the books she was reading and, er, I looked up her borrowing record on Gael Rayner’s computer when she was away from her desk.’
‘You were stalking her.’
Ogilvie winced. ‘No, please, it wasn’t like that. There was nothing predatory about it. I was just intrigued. She was so refreshing, a free spirit. And then, when she collapsed like that, it was so terrible, like fate . . .’
‘Fate?’
‘Yes.’ He reached for one of the last
pictures, and drew it out with the tips of his fingers as if afraid it might burn him. It showed Marion on the floor, her red hair fanning out, surrounded by a sprinkling of wild blooms. ‘Don’t you see? Ophelia . . . You must know it, in the Tate, the Millais painting.’
Ophelia. Kathy remembered that the name had been on Tina’s word list. Ogilvie looked at her blank face, then his expression crumpled. ‘Oh my God, this is a nightmare.’
Kathy, her voice softening a little, as if in sympathy at his predicament, said, ‘Please understand, Nigel, that we will discover everything. It is important that you are completely frank with me from the start, or else things will go very badly for you. Now, what part did you play in Marion’s death?’
He shook his head so hard his whole body vibrated. ‘No, no, nothing!’
‘Was it a prank, to get her attention?’
‘I swear, no.’
‘You put something in her lunch during the morning, didn’t you? Perhaps you just intended to make her a little unwell, so that you could be a good Samaritan and take her home. Was that it?’
Ogilvie moaned, gasping his denials.
‘You know how she died, don’t you?’
‘I’ve read the newspapers. People in the library have been talking about it.’
‘What’s your understanding of what happened?’
‘Well, I believe she went out to have her lunch in the square, as I told you . . .’
He stammered his account, and all the time Kathy was willing him to say the word that hadn’t been in the papers: arsenic. That would clinch it. But he came to the end without a hint of it, and no matter how she probed, he repeated only, ‘Poison, that’s what I read.’
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