Murder Is Academic

by Christine Poulson

  Lawrence rang me around eleven to tell me Rebecca was still profoundly unconscious. She had not been raped but all the same the police weren’t discounting a sexual motive to the attack. Stephen rang at twelve to offer to cook dinner. Apart from that, the telephone remained inert on my desk. Around three o’clock I caught myself glancing at it for at least the fiftieth time, willing it to ring with news of Rebecca. I took myself in hand. On the principle that a watched pot never boils, I drove to the university library to continue hunting biographical details for my edition of nineteenth century verse. I forced myself to wait until it was half-past six and time to leave before I rang the hospital. I somehow felt that self-control had earned me good news. My heart sank when the ward sister told me that there was no change.

  Stephen’s flat is in a block built in the thirties near the river over by Midsummer Common, only a ten minute drive after the rush-hour.

  As soon as he saw my face, he said, ‘No more news about Rebecca then?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Walking through the little entrance hall into the sitting-room, I breathed in the smell that I always associated with Stephen’s flat; a mixture of the soap he always used, Cussons Imperial Leather, furniture polish and the pleasantly musty smell of old books. There was something cosy and old-fashioned, but also very masculine, about the solid mahogany furniture and the rugs with their warm, faded colours, which he had inherited from the North Devon vicarage where he had grown up.

  Stephen took my coat and I sank with a sigh onto the sofa.

  ‘I suppose a large Scotch is out of the question,’ he said, ‘but there’s a shepherd’s pie in the oven.’

  ‘Bless you.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re four months pregnant,’ he said, sitting down beside me.

  ‘It can be quite a long time before it really shows apparently.’

  ‘I keep counting back and wondering when exactly it was.’

  ‘Do you know when I think it was? That day that I burned the letters, when there was the thunderstorm.’

  Stephen thought about that for a while. ‘That seems appropriate somehow, though I’m not quite sure why.’

  Over the meal I told him what I’d found out about the attack on Rebecca.

  ‘She shares a house with some other girls in Cherry Hinton, one of those big Victorian villas. One of her friends found her in the shrubbery, next to where they leave their bikes. I keep wondering if I should say something to the police. Or to Lawrence. About what Rebecca said, I mean.’

  ‘It’s hard to see what connection there could be with this attack. I’d be inclined to wait and see what happens. The police may well make an arrest very soon.’

  ‘Lawrence would absolutely not want all this about Margaret and Lucy to come out. You know, Stephen, I think, if he had been the one to find those letters, he would have done just what I did, but not for same reason.’

  Stephen thought about this. ‘He would have wanted to protect the reputation of the college.’

  ‘At all costs.’

  ‘At all costs?’

  We looked at each other. A nightmare scenario was unfolding before my eyes.

  ‘No.’ I said firmly, ‘this is sheer paranoia. Burning love letters is one thing, murder is quite another. Lawrence may be unscrupulous, but he’s not wicked. Or stupid. He is far too smart to try to cover up one scandal at the risk of causing a bigger one.’

  ‘The college is very important to him, isn’t it? He’s not married?’

  ‘Divorced. No children. It’s true: the college is probably the most important thing in his life.’

  ‘There’s no limit to what people will do for love,’ he said. ‘Or hate, for that matter. That’s one thing I’ve learned in twenty years of being a lawyer.’

  ‘It’s one of the lessons of great literature, too. It’s usually love of another human being, a spouse, a lover, a child, but it could be – well, almost anything really – a country, a cause, an ideal…’

  ‘An institution?’

  In my mind’s eye I saw the desiccated little figure of the Master, dressed in his invariable pinstriped suit of rather old-fashioned cut.

  ‘Stephen, can you really imagine him hiding in the bushes with a blunt instrument and hitting Rebecca over the head? Just to cover up a love affair between a student and a member of staff? It wouldn’t have been that big a scandal.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, as he gathered up the plates. ‘Not objectively, perhaps. But just imagine it on the front page of the News of the World. “Cambridge College Hotbed of Lesbian Lust”.’

  ‘All the same, it’s just not his style. A damning critique of one’s latest book, yes, but hitting one over the head, no.’

  Stephen glanced at his watch.

  ‘It’s getting late. Are you going to stay here tonight?’

  ‘I’ll have to go home and feed Bill Bailey.’

  ‘Will you be all right on your own? Perhaps I’d better come.’

  ‘Of course I will. I’m not ill, you know, only pregnant.’

  I had spoken more sharply than I intended. Stephen was silent.

  ‘Sorry.’ I leaned over and kissed him. ‘Ring you tomorrow?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Stephen’s solicitude, my irritation: as I drove home, I wondered if this was going to set a pattern for the future.

  It wasn’t until I’d parked at the Old Granary and switched off my headlights, that I noticed how very dark the night was. The overcast sky was like a sheet of dark felt. It was hard to tell where the land ended and the sky began. The house was a black featureless mass, its outline broken only by trees and shrubs. Usually I remembered to leave on the light in the little hallway, but this morning I had been too preoccupied. I was suddenly very conscious of how isolated the house was; usually I loved that, but today it did seem very lonely.

  I rummaged in the glove compartment for the torch I always kept there. The darkness had never bothered me before, but now I found myself measuring the distance to the front door. I got my keys out of my handbag, put them in my right-hand jacket pocket and opened the car door. The sound of the stream was less of a noise than a kind of intensification of the darkness.

  The torch illuminated the crazy paving with a dancing wedge of yellow light. I had my hand on the latch of the garden gate when I heard a slight, but unmistakable, rustling in the bushes. I froze, my heart thudding. I swung the beam of the torch round as though it were a weapon. There was a flash of white near the ground followed by a muffled cry. I lowered the torch to see Bill Bailey gazing benignly up at me. A tail was dangling from his mouth like a strand of spaghetti. He opened his mouth and dropped the mouse on the grass. It lay immobile just long enough for me to decide it must be dead, then it shot back into the bushes. I scooped Bill Bailey up and carried him, the cat wriggling and protesting bitterly, up the garden path. I clutched him tighter and felt his heart beating rapidly inside the narrow bony cage of his chest. My own seemed to be beating just as fast. Gripping him under my left arm, I groped for my key, opened the door and pushed him in.

  I bolted the door. My heart was still racing and I had poured myself a lage Scotch before I remembered that I wasn’t really supposed to be drinking. My doctor had said that an occasional drink wouldn’t do me or the baby any harm, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I poured almost all of it back into the bottle leaving just a film on the bottom of the glass. I filled it up to the top with soda. I restrained my impulse to ring Stephen and promised myself that first thing in the morning I’d arrange to have security lights fitted.

  I rang the hospital to see if there was any news of Rebecca. Her condition was unchanged. I fed Bill Bailey and went up to bed with my drink.

  For a long time I couldn’t sleep. The baby and Rebecca and Stephen and the séance went round and round in my head like an irritating tune that you can’t dislodge.

  Eventually I put the World Service on so low that I could scarcely distinguish the words. I fell aslee
p to its background murmur. My last conscious thought was to hope that there would be news of Rebecca the next day. But there wasn’t, nor the next day, nor the day after that.

  Chapter Ten

  The nurse leaned forward and pointed. ‘Look, there’s her head, can you see?’

  Initially I couldn’t make sense of the shifting pattern of light and dark, then I saw first the curve of the skull, then a tiny curled hand and two little feet nestling together.

  ‘So it really is a girl,’ Stephen said.

  The nurse nodded. ‘A lovely little girl.’

  ‘Is she all right?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s fine. You’ve had the results of your amniocentesis, haven’t you? So you can relax and enjoy your pregnancy now. We’ll see you in a month.’

  ‘A baby girl,’ Stephen said, as we made our way towards the entrance. He was grinning all over his face.

  ‘Daddy’s girl already,’ I teased.

  ‘You think I’ll be a pushover, don’t you?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Oh, well, maybe you’re right. On the other hand I may turn out to be a rather strict father. I shall practise saying, “And where do you think you’re going dressed like that, young lady”?’

  I laughed, but he must have caught a flicker of unease on my face.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Oh, nothing really, it’s just that thinking so far ahead makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.’

  ‘Tempting providence?’

  ‘Something like that. After all, we’ve got months to go before she’s even born.’

  As the automatic doors opened to let us out of the Rosie Maternity Hospital, a wave of cold air rolled in. Cambridge in November: it wasn’t actually raining, but a bitter wind was rushing in from the fens, slapping stinging drops of moisture across our faces.

  ‘Are you going back to college?’ Stephen asked.

  I glanced at my watch. In spite of the twilight gloom, it was only 3.30.

  ‘No, I need to go to the library, but first I’ll go and find out if there’s any change with Rebecca and see how her mother’s getting on.’

  We walked the few hundred yards to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, and Stephen left me at the entrance. I got the lift to the fifth floor.

  The Ward Sister in charge of the Intensive Care Unit looked so young that she could almost have been playing at being a nurse. She was probably about twenty-three or twenty-four, the same age as my postgraduate students, but she’d already seen more death than any of them would see in a lifetime.

  I usually waited outside the ward to see Rebecca’s mother, and I was surprised when the nurse asked me if I would like to see Rebecca.

  ‘I don’t usually … I’m not a relative…’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think it’ll do any harm. Follow me.’

  My stomach shrank in apprehension, but I felt that I was being offered a privilege that it would be churlish to refuse. The Ward Sister opened the door of the Intensive Care Unit, and I followed her in. Immediately I was struck by how peaceful it was. I realized that I had been expecting something different. There was no sense of urgency or drama, no exaggerated efforts to be quiet; people were moving calmly about their business with no fuss or wasted effort or unnecessary conversation.

  Rebecca was in a special unit for head injuries. The ward was organized in a semi-circle of cells about a central station and she was at one end. I could see Marion sitting by her side. We walked down the ward past white forms and impassive faces from which I tried to avert my eyes.

  We reached the foot of Rebecca’s bed and stood there unnoticed by Marion. Rebecca lay like a sculpture on a tomb. Under the swathes of white bandage, her face was serene. The petulant set of her mouth had relaxed, and she looked as peaceful and innocent as a young nun. Her hand lay open on the counterpane, palm up, fingers gently curving. I looked at her, feeling awe and respect for the mystery of her unconsciousness. To what distant interior world had she retreated, leaving her body here, the still centre of a network of machinery and purposeful human activity? It was like a legend or a fairy story in a contemporary setting: the court of Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. These days the princess would be on a life support system and would be rescued by a handsome consultant.

  The nurse touched Marion on the shoulder. She looked up, smiled, and gestured to a metal and canvas chair next to her. There was a bundle of knitting and a copy of the Daily Mail on it. She lifted them off and I sat down.

  She said, ‘I get so fidgety, sitting here all day. I don’t know what to do with my hands. So today, when I went out to stretch my legs, I went into the wool shop on Cherry Hinton Road. I love knitting. I bought the most difficult pattern I could find. And these are Rebecca’s favourite colours. Perhaps by the time I’ve finished it…’

  She gave a resigned little grimace. I looked into the strong, sallow-skinned face. The dark, deep-set eyes had grown more hollowed in the month that she had spent in the hospital. For the first week after the attack, Rebecca’s parents had both stayed by her bedside, but there were four younger children to care for and a business to run. Rebecca’s father had returned to Newcastle, coming back to Cambridge at weekends to support his wife in her vigil.

  We sat watching the tranquil face. Now and again Mrs Westerley squeezed Rebecca’s hand or stroked her arm. There was no response of any kind.

  After a while I said, ‘Shall we go and have a cup of tea?’

  She nodded.

  We went out through the swing doors into a different, more workaday world. The sound of voices echoed down the corridor. A trolley rattled as it was wheeled past. An orderly dressed in blue was mopping the floor. The sharp smell of disinfectant prickled my nostrils.

  As we waited for the lift, Marion said, ‘Rebecca’s coming off the critical list. They’ll be moving her out of Intensive Care in a day or so.’

  I could tell from her face and the tone of her voice that this wasn’t such good news as it sounded.

  ‘That’s because she’s breathing without a ventilator,’ she explained, ‘but she’s still deeply unconscious.’

  When we were sitting over our cups of tea, I said, ‘The Master asked me to remind you that you’re very welcome to stay in a college guest room for as long as you want. Why don’t you do that? I’m sure you could do with a good night’s sleep. You could have an evening meal in college, too.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you, but…’

  I knew why she was reluctant. It would be a further indication that she was in for the long haul with no immediate prospect of Rebecca gaining consciousness. The crisis had changed into something less urgent, but in its uncertainty, just as terrible.

  I leaned forward and put my hand on her arm. ‘Promise me you’ll think about it.’

  ‘Yes, I will, I promise I will. Now tell me how you are. Have you just come from the maternity hospital?’

  I told her the good news about the amniocentesis and the excitement of seeing the ultrasound scan of the baby. A kind of friendship had sprung up between us. She always asked about my pregnancy. It was the only topic from the present day that seemed really to engage her. When I tried to talk about anything else, her eyes grew vague. In return she told me about her own pregnancies and reminisced about Rebecca’s childhood. Today, for the first time, it struck me that we were talking about Rebecca as if she were already dead.

  I said, ‘Any news from the police?’

  ‘They keep coming to the hospital, asking how Rebecca is, how I am. They’re very kind, but I don’t think they’re much further forward. Of course, it would help if they could question Rebecca. But the doctors don’t know how much she’ll remember or how far she’ll be her old self. We’ll cross those bridges when we come to them.’

  There was nothing I could say. The conversation always ended with the thought that no one wanted to put into words: that Rebecca might never regain consciousness.

  I saw Marion to the lift and watched the doors close behind her. By the time I had w
alked round to the hospital car park, I was chilled to the bone. The car wouldn’t start at first, but after a few seconds the engine came grudgingly to life. With the heater on full blast I soon warmed up, but my mood remained bleak as I drove to the university library. It didn’t help that a fine drizzle had begun to fall.

  It was dark in the car park. Of course, Cambridge isn’t actually lit by gaslight these days, but sometimes it feels as though it is. The lanterns on top of the cast-iron posts have long been converted to electricity, but they give off a curiously watery yellow light. The twelve-storey tower of the library loomed up before me, massive, monolithic, portentous. Most of its vertical slits of windows were dark. I stood for a moment looking up at it, feeling dwarfed by its scale. In the long wings on either side, irregular lights showed. It was like the monument of some ancient and mysterious civilization, a ziggurat or a mausoleum big enough to take a king and the whole of his court. This impression vanished as I went up the broad flight of shallow steps and passed through the revolving door into the hall of a busy academic library.

  I found a place in the central Reading Room, close to the reference books I needed, and spread out my papers. After a short time, I pushed my chair back and looked around the long narrow room with its high ceiling and long rows of tables lit by desk lamps. As usual during term-time, it was almost full, but the big space soaked up sound. All I could hear was a faint murmur of conversation at the enquiry desk, and the occasional rustle of someone at the next table turning a page. It struck me that the atmosphere was oddly similar to that of the Intensive Care ward.

  It had moved me deeply, that room of silent sleepers. I thought again that it was like a legend or a fairy-story. There was something timeless and peaceful about it; there seemed no reason why Rebecca should not lie there for years, as insulated from the world as a child in the womb. There was a tiny snapping noise. I looked down. I had broken the point of my pencil.