‘OK, don’t worry, tell him that’s fine.’
She closed the door.
Merfyn caught my eye and grinned. I couldn’t help grinning back.
‘I don’t know what the hell I thought that was,’ I said. ‘But, look, Merfyn, this isn’t a laughing matter, is it? What exactly are you trying to tell me? Where does the medium come into it?’
‘Oh, she’s just the channel,’ he said. ‘You must have heard of automatic writing.’
‘So you think someone else, someone who’s dead…?’
He nodded. ‘And from various hints that he’s dropped, it’s pretty clear who it is.’
‘So…?’
‘I think it’s Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.’
Was he pulling my leg? One glance at Merfyn told me that he was entirely serious.
‘You really mean to tell me that you think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is dictating your book to you?’
Merfyn looked uncomfortable. ‘Not exactly that, that would be cheating really, wouldn’t it? It’s more like a collaboration. I’ve done all the research, he helps me to put it all together, get it down on paper. It’s not really so surprising, Conan Doyle was a fervent believer in spiritualism, you know. He wants to make sure I get things right.’
We sat in silence as I tried to work out the implications of this. There had been a pair of women writers at the end of the nineteenth century – Somerville and Ross, was it? – didn’t one of them claim that they had gone on writing together after the death of the other? I felt a powerful resistance to the idea and the more I thought about it, the more problems I could see. There was the question of academic detachment, for one thing. If the book turned into a polemic in support of spiritualism, no reputable academic publisher would touch it with a bargepole. I fingered the blue cardboard folder, which was still on my lap.
‘Perhaps we could meet again when I’ve had a chance to read this?’ I said.
‘Of course, of course.’
I tried to imagine explaining to Lawrence how Merfyn had at last come to write his book. And what if it became more widely known? I could already see the tabloid headlines: ‘Elementary, my dear Watson!’ Oh, God, what would that do for the future of the department?
‘Does anyone else know about this?’ I asked.
‘Only Celia.’
‘Let’s keep it that way, shall we?’ I said.
He was halfway to the door when I remembered the occasion that Merfyn had spoken to me about a conjuring trick. It had been outside the church on the day of Margaret’s funeral, and he had been referring to my discovery of Margaret’s body. Now you see her, now you don’t. It was as if a cool hand had brushed the back of my neck. In spite of the warmth of the room I found myself shivering.
‘Merfyn,’ I said.
He stopped and looked round.
‘Merfyn, you’re not still doing this, are you? Going to séances, I mean? It was just a one-off, wasn’t it?’
‘Well, actually, I did go again. Just once or twice. What’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘You wouldn’t … Margaret … you haven’t … You wouldn’t try to…?’
‘Margaret? No, I haven’t. I wouldn’t – and anyway, I haven’t been to a séance since she … well, since she died.’
Then something seemed to occur to him. He stood thinking for a moment or two.
‘You know, they say that people who’ve died a sudden or violent death, those are just the sort of spirits who tend to remain earthbound.’
I stared at him. ‘Merfyn, please tell me you won’t try to contact Margaret. I don’t believe for a moment that you could, but please don’t even try. Promise me.’
The very thought was repugnant.
He hesitated.
‘Promise me,’ I insisted.
‘All right. But you know, Cassandra—’
‘What?’
‘I’m not promising that I won’t ever go to a séance again. And if I do, what’s to stop her from trying to make contact?’
Chapter Six
‘Checkmate.’
‘What? No, no, it can’t be.’ I surveyed the chessboard. ‘Oh, Lord, so it is.’
‘You know, Cass, I just don’t think you’ve got your mind on this,’ Paul said. ‘You usually give me a better run for my money.’
He began putting the chess pieces back in the box.
‘You’re right. I’m not feeling my best.’
I was feeling out of sorts in a way that was difficult to put my finger on: tired, lethargic, a bit of a headache. I realized that I hadn’t felt really well since the day I’d found Margaret’s body – a couple of months ago now. Surely I couldn’t still be suffering from shock?
Paul wedged the chessboard and box of pieces under one arm and made his way across the room, shifting his weight awkwardly from one piece of furniture to the next. I knew better than to jump up and help. He was a small, wiry man with a lot of nervous energy and it had hit him hard when multiple sclerosis had forced him to retire from his job as a researcher in the university’s chemistry laboratories. That had been a year ago.
He put the chess things away and sank with a sigh into a chair. The table next to it was piled with a jumble of books and cassettes: a biography of Darwin rubbed shoulders with The River Café Cook Book. He fumbled among them and brought out an oilskin bag and a packet of Rizlas.
‘I expect having to go to the inquest has taken it out of you,’ he said sympathetically. He began the smoker’s ritual of the roll-up.
‘You’re not kidding.’
I had been the first to give evidence. Then I sat listening with a dry mouth to the reports from the police and the pathologist, fearing that Margaret’s affair with Lucy would after all come to light, or even – absurdly – that someone would get up and denounce me for having burned the letters.
The pathologist had found no water in Margaret’s lungs, but apparently this was by no means uncommon in death by drowning When water comes into contact with the vocal cords, the muscles around the larynx go into spasm and the breathing reflex is inhibited. Death is caused by suffocation. Margaret had died quickly and painlessly. The contents of her stomach and the level of alcohol in her blood suggested that shortly before her death she had eaten a meal with which she had drunk a couple of glasses of wine, but no more than that. There were no signs of heart disease or history of epilepsy. Bruising on her right temple was severe enough to have induced temporary unconsciousness. She had been wearing a swimming-costume. The coroner, a balding, middle-aged man, concluded that Margaret had probably hit her head while diving into the pool, suffering a glancing blow to the head, which had rendered her unconscious. She had been a healthy woman in the prime of life with everything to live for. He felt justified in bringing in a verdict of accidental death, and offered his condolences to Margaret’s husband and family. He directed a sympathetic half-smile towards Malcolm and began shuffling his papers together. There was a scraping of chairs as people got to their feet.
I felt relief and exhilaration.
I made my way to where Malcolm was sitting. I noticed that he had just had his hair cut; there was a little scattering of tiny red-gold strands on one shoulder of his dark suit. The attempt at smartness was touching.
I put my hand on his arm.
‘Thank you, Cassandra,’ he said.
‘What for?’
‘For giving your evidence so calmly. It can’t have been easy.’ He took my hand and squeezed it hard. ‘I’m glad it’s over,’ he said.
At that moment I knew that I’d done the right thing.
After all that worrying, it was all over. But I still felt so tired.
I let my eyes wander around the back room of the little terraced house in Newnham. The floral patters of the sofa and armchairs had faded to a soothing dimness and one entire wall was lined with books. Paul was lying back, eyes closed, the hand that held his cigarette dangling loosely over the arm of the chair. The French windows were open onto the
narrow strip of garden. Alison was weeding the herb-bed close to the house. The scents of thyme, rosemary and mint mingled with Paul’s cigarette smoke. The perfumed air seemed to fill my head. I gave a yawn so wide that my eyes filled with tears.
Alison straightened up. She put her hands in the small of her back and stretched. Brushing some soil off her skirt, she stepped into the house, and sat next to Paul. He opened his eyes and smiled at her.
‘I haven’t had many afternoons in the garden this summer, I can tell you,’ she said. ‘I’ve been slogging it out in the university library.’
‘Bless you,’ I said.
‘Oh, I don’t mind really. I’m quite enjoying it. I ought to have written up this piece of research years ago. And anyway we’ve all got to do our bit. How’s Merfyn getting along?’
‘Fine, I think,’ I stifled the twinge of anxiety that I felt whenever I thought of him. I had read the opening of his book and it had seemed a model of scholarly detachment, but that didn’t mean I was happy at the way it came into being.
With an effort, I got to my feet. ‘I’d better be off. I need to do some shopping. See you in a fortnight, Paul. I’ll get my revenge then.’
It’s a pleasant walk into the centre of town from Newnham. As I strolled across Lammas Land recreation ground I was only half-conscious of the sounds of a warm August day: the thud of tennis balls, a man calling a dog, the cries of small children. I was reflecting on the way that trouble so often comes from the direction that you least expect. I had dreaded the inquest for weeks, but it had been over in less than an hour, and Lucy’s name hadn’t even been mentioned. I’d been worried about Alison and Merfyn, but at least they were trying to get some writing done. And now I was wondering whether I should be even more concerned about Aiden. I’d taken it for granted that there wouldn’t be a problem – he’d been appointed on the strength of his research record after all – but when I looked at his list of publications, I understood why Margaret had been concerned. There was nothing dated later than the previous year, and no reference to forthcoming publications. Probably he was working on another major book. That could take years. All the same, Lawrence wasn’t going to like it, and the really maddening thing was that I hadn’t been able to get in touch with Aiden to discuss it. He seemed to have gone to ground after the end of term. I left memos in his pigeon-hole; they stayed there. I rang his house several times a week; there was never any answer, and his mobile was always switched off. I was getting more and more annoyed. He should have let me know if he was going to be away on holiday or was pursuing research elsewhere.
I was standing by the crossing on Fen Causeway waiting for the light to go green and brooding about Aiden, when I realized that I was looking right at him. My eyes had been absently following the figure in a black T-shirt and baggy black tracksuit bottoms for some seconds. He was about two hundred yards away on the other side of the road jogging along the path that led into town by the river. As I watched, he stopped and bent over, hands on knees, to get his breath back. At that moment the crossing light went green.
I crossed the road, ran along the pavement, weaving in and out of pedestrians, and pushed open the metal gate to the path by the river. Aiden was only about fifty yards away. He straightened up and set off at a brisk trot. I yelled his name, but he didn’t seem to hear. I jogged slowly after him, my long plait of hair thumping on my back in time to my breathing. He drew away from me and disappeared round the curve of the river.
I collapsed, panting, onto a bench with a stitch in my side. My calf muscles were trembling and my shirt was damp with sweat. God, was I out of condition! Over the last few months I’d noticed my clothes getting a bit tighter, too. It was about time I took myself in hand and got some proper exercise. I sat, catching my breath and enjoying the view. The elders and willows grew so thickly that Fitzwilliam Museum and Peterhouse College on the other side of the river were lost to view. There wasn’t a modern building in sight. Short, tussocky pasture dotted with poplars and grazed by black and white Friesian cows stretched out on this side of the river. If you closed your ears to the constant roar of traffic, you could imagine that things had looked much the same for the last hundred years.
I got up and walked on to Granta Place, where the river widens into what was once a mill pond. The paths were crowded here and people were sitting on the grass. There’s a place to hire punts and it’s always busy. I scanned the crowd just in case Aiden was still there. Through the throng I glimpsed a familiar figure in black. Aiden was at the head of the queue for the ice-cream van. As I made my way towards him, he completed his transaction and walked off down Mill Lane. He wasn’t running now, just walking fast, but there were so many people on both the road and the pavement that I couldn’t have caught up even if I’d had the energy to run. I followed him to Fitzwilliam Street, where he turned left towards the town centre. It was ridiculous. I knew that, tracking Aiden through the streets of Cambridge as if I were some kind of secret agent, but my blood was up and I was absolutely determined to pin him down about his research.
August is the height of the tourist season in Cambridge. A couple of times I thought I’d lost him in the crowd, then I would see his head bobbing along in front of me. As I passed the English Teddy Bear Company, I was forced off the pavement by a gaggle of Spanish students. I remembered what Merfyn had said about hearing seven different languages between Jesus Lane and the market. I couldn’t see Aiden. I stopped and looked anxiously around. There was a narrow passage to the right, a short-cut down to the market. Had he gone down there? I walked down the cutting and turned left by St Edward’s church into Market Square.
Aiden was nowhere in sight.
I was hot and sweaty and crosser than ever. I knew now that he was actually in Cambridge; he must have been deliberately avoiding me. I decided to give him time to get home, and then go round to his house. Meanwhile I wandered around in the market, hoping that I might still come across him. I stopped to browse the books on the second-hand book stall. I was inspecting a rather nice edition of Mrs Henry Wood’s East Lynne, when I happened to glance up: between the polyester dresses hanging on the next stall, I caught a glimpse of Aiden walking swiftly down Market Street. I dropped the book and gave chase.
I emerged from the market just in time to see him disappear into W.H. Smith’s.
The ground floor was crowded and it took a few moments before I could be sure that Aiden wasn’t there. He must have gone up to the books on the first floor. I ran up the stairs two at a time. At first I couldn’t see him here either, but then I spotted his head and shoulders among the aisles of books at the back of the shop. I had him cornered. Something tense and alert about the way he was standing aroused my curiosity. I made my way towards him. He was alone in the aisle except for a woman with a push-chair who was slowly making her way in his direction; a small child was leaning over the side, trailing a large book on the carpet.
I was almost up to him before he saw me. His shoulders jerked back and his eyes widened. I was suddenly conscious of the well-muscled body under the black T-shirt and the not unpleasant salty odour of fresh sweat. Tendrils of black hair were curling over the neck of his T-shirt. His attention flickered to the shelf beside me. My eyes followed his. I took in a couple of titles – Venus in Furs, My Secret Life – and jackets in monochrome and sepia showing half-naked women in black leather or corsets, kneeling on cane chairs or reclining on chaise-longues. Victorian soft porn. I looked back at Aiden. He was blushing. His hand shot up to his receding hairline in his automatic smoothing gesture.
Then several things happened very quickly. As the woman with the push-chair passed Aiden, her child dropped its book on the carpet. As if in an effort to escape me, Aiden took a step back. His foot skidded on the glossy cover of the book. The woman shouted. In an effort to avoid crashing into the child in its pushchair, Aiden twisted round. Hopelessly off-balance, he tried to right himself by grabbing a waist-high display stand full of books. As I moved forward, Aiden’s f
oot shot out and caught me a glancing blow that knocked my right leg out from under me. I grabbed one of the aisle shelves but my weight carried me on. I slid along it, pushing the books before me. At the last moment I managed to steady myself, but it was too late to stop the books. A dozen fat blue-and-white paperbacks shot off the end of the shelf just as the display stand to which Aiden was clinging toppled over. It hit the floor with a thud that echoed through the store.
There were a few seconds of complete silence. They were broken by the outraged screams of the child whose carelessness had resulted in Aiden lying on top of a crushed display stand, surrounded by copies of the W.H. Smith Romance of the Month.
Chapter Seven
I glanced at my watch. A few minutes after ten; Rebecca was late. Her latest essay, her personal file and my own book, Introduction to the Victorian Novel, lay on the desk in front of me on top of a litter of other papers. I leafed through the file. The problems had begun in the previous academic year: work handed in late, poor grades, missed seminars. I wasn’t looking forward to my interview with her, but I’d been through this with many students over the years: I knew how it would go and what I could hope to achieve.
I turned round on my swivel chair and looked out of the window. It was the end of the first week of term. The October day was bright and crisp, yet there was something a little sad about the thinness of the sunshine and the quality of the shadows. The lawn was now dappled with yellowing leaves. Yet the beginning of the academic year had also brought a sense of renewal: a chance to begin again.
Margaret’s picture and her rolled-up rug were still propped up in the corner of the office – I should have taken those round to Malcolm weeks ago, and I resolved to do it that weekend – but there were no other traces of her in the office. The shelves were overflowing with my books, and the desk was covered in letters, memos and student essays. It was easy enough to take over her office, but how was I measuring up in other ways? I sighed. It was impossible to imagine the cool and orderly Margaret embarking on a chase through the streets of Cambridge ending in one of her colleagues falling flat on his back on the floor of W.H. Smith’s. I felt both amused and embarrassed when I thought about it. I hadn’t told anyone except Stephen, and I was pretty sure that Aiden wouldn’t have spread it around: too much sense of his own dignity. The episode had ended with Aiden promising to produce an outline of his future research. It hadn’t appeared yet.
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