Murder Is Academic

by Christine Poulson

  ‘You do have a point there,’ Stephen admitted.

  In the heat of our discussion we hadn’t noticed the time passing. Now I realized that the air had taken on the grainy texture that means it will soon be getting dark. I looked down into the valley. The other walkers had gone. There was no one in sight.

  ‘We’d better go,’ I said.

  Stephen stood up.

  ‘Where exactly was Lucy found?’ he asked.

  ‘I think her fall was broken by some trees, so I suppose it must have been down there.’

  He took a step or two further forward for a better view.

  And that was when it happened. He put his foot down on a stone hidden by the grass and turned his ankle. He swayed sideways. I was just getting to my feet and I put out my hands instinctively to break his fall. He was teetering, trying to get his balance. He reached out to grab my coat. His eyes met mine. Time seemed to stop for a moment, and in that space it was as if I could see the thoughts going through his mind. The baby! I mustn’t … I wasn’t sure if it was my thought or his. I took a step backwards. At the same moment he jerked his hand away. Then he was down, rolling down the slope, scrabbling at the grass as he went, pulling out huge muddy handfuls.

  I watched in helpless horror as Stephen went over the cliff.

  Chapter Twelve

  DEATH CLIFF CLAIMS SECOND VICTIM

  I read the headline aloud.

  ‘Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,’ Stephen said sourly.

  ‘They don’t actually say that you’re dead,’ I pointed out. ‘Just that you are a victim. Now where was I? Oh yes. “Cambridge solicitor, Stephen Newley, 41, a partner in the firm of Callow, Newley and Loomis, was lucky to escape with his life when he lost his footing walking in the Derbyshire Dales and fell over the cliff that claimed the life of Cambridge postgraduate, Lucy Hambleton, earlier this year. He suffered multiple injuries—”’

  ‘Multiple injuries!’

  ‘Well, I suppose cuts and bruises, a cracked rib, a sprained ankle and mild concussion could be described as multiple.’

  ‘But it makes me sound as if I’m at death’s door!’

  ‘Let’s see. How does it go on…? “His heavily pregnant girlfriend, Cassandra James, 40" – bloody cheek! Can’t they get anything right? – “scrambled down the mountainside to summon help. Mrs Vickery, landlady of The Compleat Angler, where the couple were staying, said, ‘Thor’s Cave is very picturesque, but the path up to the cave is very steep, and it’s slippery when it’s been raining. People don’t realize how dangerous it is’…” blah, blah, blah.’

  I dropped the Cambridge Evening News on the bed. It slithered onto the floor, startling Bill Bailey who was curled up at the bottom of the bed.

  ‘How did they get hold of the story anyway?’ Stephen wondered.

  ‘Some enterprising stringer hanging around Derby General Hospital, I expect. The article was right about one thing. You were lucky. We were lucky.’

  ‘I know. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Still can’t believe I was so stupid.’ Stephen closed his eyes.

  I watched his face. We hadn’t talked much about the accident. It was as though we didn’t want to make the horror of what had nearly happened more real by discussing it. Those moments on the hillside after he had vanished over the edge of the cliff had been the most terrible of my life. There had been a crashing and a tearing sound. Then absolute silence had settled over the valley. I was still standing there, frozen to the spot, when I heard Stephen faintly calling. His fall had been broken by a tree. I had made my way slowly down the hillside, willing myself to keep calm for the sake of the baby, going down the steepest parts on my backside so as not to risk falling. Near the bottom I had met two mountain bikers on a rough track. One of them had gone for help, while the other had stayed with me. Stephen had only been in hospital overnight. We had stayed at The Compleat Angler for an extra night to rest, then I had driven the Audi very slowly back to Cambridge on the Monday, with Stephen in the passenger seat, angled as far back as it would go. He was installed in my small spare bedroom on the ground floor of the Old Granary. It was Tuesday evening now.

  Stephen opened his eyes and smiled at me. ‘One thing,’ he said. ‘I won’t be short of things to read.’

  It was true. There wasn’t a room in the house that wasn’t full of books. Even in here where the bed took up half the space, I had a makeshift bookcase of bricks and planks. This was where the light reading was kept. Stephen had only to stretch out a hand to have a row of classic green Penguin crime novels at his disposal: Nicholas Blake, Josephine Tey. Ngiao Marsh.

  ‘When I’m on my feet again, I’m going to make you some proper bookshelves and I won’t take no for an answer.’ He gave a yawn that turned into a grimace. ‘Do you know, the worst thing isn’t the pain – though that’s bad enough – but the blasted itching under this dressing on my chest. It’s driving me crazy.’

  I heard the sound of a car draw up outside. I looked at my watch. ‘Seven o’clock. I suppose it’s the doctor. He’s a bit early.’

  The bell rang.

  I went over to the window and looked out. The visitor had set off the security lights, but they were standing too near the front door for me to see anything except the back of a cream raincoat.

  ‘It doesn’t look like him.’

  ‘Don’t take the chain off until you’ve seen who it is,’ Stephen said.

  I went into the hall and opened the door a crack.

  The person I saw outside, waiting in the rain, was Jane Pennyfeather.

  ‘Cassandra! Are you all right?’ Her face was pale in the powerful light.

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m OK.’

  ‘I’ve come to see Stephen. I’m acting as a locum for Dr Ferris.’

  I took the chain off the door. The net of tiny raindrops on her fair hair caught the light as she came in. The chill of the evening came with her, clinging like an aura.

  ‘He’s in here,’ I said. I opened the spare room door to display Stephen lying on the bed with his blue-and-white pyjama jacket open over his bandaged ribs. There was a bandage round his head from which his hair was sticking up in tufts. His face was scratched where the branches of the tree had caught him. He had a plaster on one cheek, and one of his hands, sore from his efforts to break his fall, was still bandaged.

  ‘Jane, this is Stephen. Stephen, this is Jane Pennyfeather.’

  ‘I know I look like something from The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb,’ he said, ‘but it’s most cuts and bruises.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said.

  ‘Take your coat off. Have a cup of tea.’

  ‘Thanks. Yes, I’d like that.’

  I helped her off with her coat. Under it she was dressed in a smart red sweater, calf-length navy skirt and matching court shoes. I guessed that she had come straight from evening surgery. When I came back with the tray of tea, she was sitting on the bed beside Stephen, looking into his eyes with a little torch.

  ‘You’ll live,’ I heard her say. ‘But I expect those ribs are still pretty painful, aren’t they?’

  ‘I’ll say,’ Stephen said with feeling. ‘It’s particularly bad when I’m trying to get to sleep.’

  ‘I’ll give you a painkilling injection before I go. That should help.’

  I poured out the tea. As soon as I sat down, Bill Bailey jumped off the bed onto my knees, throwing a suspicious glance at Jane. He didn’t like strangers coming to the house.

  ‘How’s Malcolm?’ I asked.

  ‘Not bad, all things considered. He still misses Margaret terribly, of course, but he’s coping.’

  She sipped her tea in silence. Stephen lay back on the pillows with his eyes closed. I stroked Bill Bailey.

  Jane said, ‘It’s not by chance that I’m here this evening. I am acting as a locum for the practice, but not actually for Dr Ferris. When I saw the call listed, I asked to come in his place. I just had to find out what was going on, how you were. Especially you,
Cassandra, with your pregnancy.’

  ‘It’s sweet of you to be so concerned,’ I said slowly.

  There was a question in my voice. I waited for her to say more, but nothing came. I looked into her face and saw that she was frowning.

  ‘Jane, what’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s just brought everything back.’

  ‘Brought what back?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘Of course, you don’t know, do you? Lucy Hambleton was my cousin.’

  ‘Your cousin?’ I stared at her. I had never dreamed of there being any connection between them. How could they be cousins? They seemed to be from different generations. It didn’t make sense.

  I was about to speak. Jane anticipated my question. ‘She was the daughter of my mother’s younger sister. I was fifteen when she was born. I’ve always felt protective towards her. She stayed with me when she first came to Cambridge.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘I see.’

  So Margaret and Lucy had met socially, not just as head of department and student. That made sense.

  Jane looked at me, then at Stephen, and back at me. She reached out to Bill Bailey, who drew his head back.

  I waited to see what she would say. The silence between us lengthened.

  At last she said, ‘What were you doing at Thor’s Cave? Was that just a coincidence?’

  I didn’t know what to say. On the face of it, this seemed a ghoulish thing to do, to go visiting the place where one of your students had died. In the end I didn’t say anything. I just shook my head.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’ Jane said.

  ‘About…?’

  ‘About Margaret and Lucy.’

  I nodded.

  ‘I thought you probably did, that day in the churchyard after the funeral.’

  ‘No, I didn’t know then.’ I thought about what she had said that day. ‘What you said about Malcolm, that he might be having an affair: that was a kind of smoke-screen, wasn’t it? You didn’t believe that, did you?’

  ‘Of course not. But I thought that if I said that, you might let something slip about Margaret.’

  Stephen was looking baffled.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

  To me it made perfect sense. I said, ‘You wanted to know, didn’t you, if there were any rumours floating around the college about Margaret and Lucy? But you didn’t want to ask outright, because if there weren’t, well, you didn’t want to start any. The bit about Malcolm: that was just to float the idea that there was something wrong with their marriage, to see if I’d take the bait.’

  She nodded. ‘When did you find out about it?’

  I told her how I had found the letters.

  Jane heaved a sigh. ‘I was afraid she’d kept those. I was worried that Malcolm might come across them. I even had a surreptitious look through her cupboards when I was helping Malcolm sort out her clothes. What did you do with them? Where are they?’

  ‘I burnt them.’

  There was a small shock of recognition between us. Without taking her eyes off mine, she slowly nodded.

  ‘Good. Does anyone else know?’

  ‘Only Stephen.’

  Jane said, ‘I’m glad you did that. Margaret was desperate to keep it a secret – and to protect Malcolm. I haven’t told anyone. I hoped I was the only person who knew. You’ve got no idea what a relief it is to be able to talk now. I’ve felt so guilty.’

  ‘You? Why?’ I was surprised.

  ‘I should have been there in Derbyshire with Lucy. We used to go for a week’s walking every year. But this time Ellie got chickenpox a few days before we were due to leave and I didn’t feel I could leave her just with her dad. And it was pretty much about then that it all started to go wrong for Lucy.’

  I remembered that last letter I had read. ‘She forced Margaret into a decision?’

  Jane nodded. ‘She pushed Margaret too hard. But Lucy was like that: impulsive, uncompromising. She always had to go full out for what she wanted. Margaret rang Lucy in Derbyshire to tell her that she had decided to stay with Malcolm. Lucy must have been beside herself. She tried to ring me, but she got my answering machine. I’d been up with Ellie several nights running, and when she finally fell asleep I just switched on the machine and went to bed.’

  Her face creased and tears welled up.

  ‘I didn’t hear the message until the next morning. She was crying, she said she was going to try and walk the misery out of her system. That was the last time I heard her voice. She went straight out and had that bloody stupid accident, and I was the one who had to break it to Margaret.’

  Jane covered her face with her hands. I got up and put my arm round her shoulder. When she removed her hands, her face was wet with tears. I gave her a tissue from the box on the bedside table.

  ‘How did she take it?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘Stunned. Almost catatonic with shock. It was lucky that Malcolm was away on business. But when she recovered a bit, she asked me to help. I had a spare key to Lucy’s flat. We retrieved Margaret’s letters and burnt them. I gave her some tranquilizers to help her through the worst, and when Malcolm came home, she told him she’d got flu.’

  ‘You weren’t angry? You didn’t feel that she was to blame for Lucy’s death?’ I asked.

  ‘No-one was to blame really, and I wouldn’t have had the heart when she was blaming herself so much. And she felt so guilty for having got involved with Lucy in the first place. She’d never been unfaithful to Malcolm before. Evening after evening we spent together going over and over it. Then when at last she seemed to have come through it…’ She shook her head.

  ‘It’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?’ said Stephen. ‘Lucy and Margaret both dying within a couple of months of each other?’ His voice was strained. I looked at him. His face was pale and drawn. I guessed that his ribs were hurting.

  ‘Coincidences do happen,’ Jane said. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t suicide, if that’s what you’re thinking. Margaret was genuinely on the road to recovery. There wasn’t any question of her not being able to cope.’

  ‘She was having problems at work as well,’ I said.

  ‘Well, yes, I know she was worried,’ she said firmly, ‘but I’m sure there was nothing she couldn’t handle. Look: when someone dies in the prime of life, it can be hard to accept that it was just a stupid, tragic accident. I’ve seen this in my patients, they go over and over it, searching for some hidden meaning. I found myself doing exactly the same thing after Lucy died, and again after Margaret died. But you know, things are usually just as they seem.’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘Oh, Lord, I really must go. Malcolm was keeping an eye on Ellie, but I ought to get home and put her to bed. And Stephen – what am I thinking of? You’d better have your injection, take the edge off that pain.’

  She opened her medical case. She swabbed Stephen’s arm with surgical spirit, and took out a syringe and a little bottle. I watched her draw the fluid up into the syringe and check that there wasn’t any air in it, just like they do on television or in films. Just for a moment, just for a blink of an eye, I saw the scene as if it were a still from a movie, something by Hitchcock perhaps: the syringe held up to the light, the look of frowning concentration on Jane’s face, Stephen on the bed with his arm bared. I felt a momentary impulse to lean over and dash the syringe from Jane’s hand. The needle was touching Stephen’s arm, he was grimacing and looking away. Then it was over. Jane pressed a piece of cotton wool against his arm. She packed away the syringe and the bottle, and closed the case, clicking the locks shut. I was letting my imagination run wild again. Jane was just what I had first taken her to be: level-headed, sympathetic, and no doubt an excellent GP.

  As I followed her out of the room, something she’d said earlier came back to me.

  ‘Did Margaret say exactly what it was at work that was worrying her?’ I asked.

  Jane stopped and looked at me. She narrowed her eyes in an effort of recall. ‘Now, what did she say? Ther
e was something, but just a passing comment. I know she was concerned in a general sort of way about – what is it? – the RE something or other?’

  ‘The Research Assessment Exercise.’

  ‘That’s it. She was heading for a showdown with someone, and she wasn’t much looking forward to it.’

  ‘Was it a colleague she was talking about, do you think? Or could it have been a student?’

  ‘Oh, a colleague. I think she was talking about a man. Can’t quite remember why I got that impression.’

  From the spare room window I watched Jane’s tail lights diminish to pinpricks and then disappear into the night.

  Stephen said, ‘Do you think she’s on the level?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. It all seems to hang together. And I can’t help liking her. She seems so decent and straightforward.’

  I wondered who Margaret had been dreading confronting and why. If it was a male member of the English Department, it could only be Aiden or Merfyn, unless she had been thinking about Lawrence. That was the most likely thing.

  Stephen said, ‘Are you quite sure you’re doing the right thing?’

  I looked at him and saw that he was frowning.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘Keeping Malcolm in the dark about this, covering up Margaret’s affair.’

  I felt a surge of irritation. ‘Why are you bringing this up again? I thought we’d finished with all that.’

  ‘It didn’t seem so bad when it was just between the two of us and we thought no-one else knew.’

  ‘But what’s the point of causing him unnecessary pain?’

  ‘So we smooth everything over, conspire to protect him? Aren’t we treating him like a child? It just sticks in my gullet,’ he went on, ‘the thought of the poor guy mourning for his perfect marriage, when we know otherwise.’

  I remembered the flash of complicity between Jane and me. All the same, I was nettled by Stephen’s accusation.

  ‘Well, OK, so it wasn’t perfect. But what relationship is? They had a lot of good years together and don’t forget, Margaret had decided to stay with him. She did love him. She didn’t want to hurt him by telling him about what happened with Lucy. Why sour his memory of her now when it’s not absolutely necessary?’