Murder Is Academic

by Christine Poulson

  ‘What might you see fit to conceal from me for my own good?’

  ‘So that’s what this is all about!’

  I glared at him. He glared back. The telephone rang.

  Fuming, I walked into the kitchen and snatched up the receiver.

  ‘Hello,’ I snapped.

  ‘Cassandra, this is Lawrence. I hope you are feeling better?’

  I made an effort to compose myself. ‘Yes, I am, thank you very much, Lawrence. I’ll be back in college in the morning.’

  ‘And Stephen, improving I trust?’

  ‘Very much so.’

  ‘Splendid,’ he said urbanely. ‘Good news all round then. I’m ringing to let you know that Rebecca is showing signs of regaining consciousness.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Good news, isn’t it, Dr James? About Rebecca?’ John was beaming all over his face.

  I realized that I was, too. I had the feeling of wellbeing that one has on a sunny day. It was only since Lawrence’s phonecall the evening before that I had understood how much I had been steeling myself against the possibility that Rebecca might never recover. Perhaps, I thought, she might soon be able to throw light on who had attacked her and why. Things were starting to move at last.

  ‘And Mr Newley? Is he on the mend?’

  I smiled. The porters always know everything.

  ‘He’s fine. I know he’s feeling better because he got his secretary to bring him some work.’

  ‘And you yourself, are you well? My eldest is expecting her third in January.’ John said, too polite to refer directly to my pregnancy.

  ‘Grand, thanks. And all the better for this news,’ I said.

  Even the most voluminous jumper could not disguise my swelling figure. What’s that old saying: love and a cold cannot be hid? Well, pregnancy is a by-product of love, I suppose. No point in imagining it was not public knowledge. I was growing used to acquaintances, and even perfect strangers, making detailed enquires about the state of my health, handing out advice – and occasionally even wanting to pat my belly! Older men were avuncular, older women indulgent. Childless women of my own age looked thoughtful.

  ‘How is your daughter?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, doing nicely, thank you,’ replied John.

  Still smiling, I headed for the staff pigeonholes to collect my post. Turning round the corner into the Senior Common Room, I bumped straight into Aiden who was coming the other way. As he grabbed my arms to steady me, the sheaf of papers he had been carrying flew up into the air and fluttered down around us.

  ‘Oh, Lord. I’m so sorry, Aiden. I wasn’t looking where I was going,’ I said.

  ‘Are you all right?’ His hands were still on my arms, and he was looking into my eyes. One of his pupils was an irregular shape, spilling over into the green of the iris. I hadn’t been this close to him since the debacle amongst the books in Smith’s. I wondered if he was thinking of that, too. The moment stretched out. Then he blinked and released me.

  ‘We can’t go on meeting like this, Cassandra,’ he murmured. ‘People will start talking. No, no, don’t worry,’ – as I started to bend down – ‘I’ll do that.’

  He squatted down and began gathering the papers up.

  ‘I was thinking about Rebecca,’ I said. ‘You’ve heard the news?’

  ‘Yes, thank God for that.’

  I leant against the table by the pigeonholes and watched him. I remembered that he still hadn’t given me any details of what he was working on, and in all the worry over Rebecca I hadn’t got round to chasing him up.

  ‘I still don’t have your research plan, Aiden.’

  He paused. His back was towards me so I couldn’t see his face, but he smoothed back his thinning hair.

  ‘Ah, yes, sorry. I’ll make that a priority.’

  ‘What are you working on at the moment?’

  ‘Oh, it’s still Romanticism. I’m at the ideas stage.’

  ‘Perhaps we can have a chat about it sometime?’

  ‘Sure. Not now though, I’m seeing a student.’

  With one fluid movement he stood up without touching his hands on the ground. I was envious: I hadn’t been able to do that even when I wasn’t pregnant.

  It wasn’t until he was halfway down the corridor that I saw he had missed one of his papers. I stooped awkwardly and picked it up.

  ‘Aiden!’

  When he turned, I waved the paper at him in explanation. As he walked back towards me, I glanced down at it. My eye was caught by a name scrawled in a bold hand – Annabelle Fairchild. The name rang a bell.

  Aiden stretched out his hand, looking at the paper as he did so. I was surprised to see him blush right up to his hairline. I hadn’t the slightest idea what was the matter, but embarrassment is infectious and I felt my own face grow hot. He snatched the sheet of paper from my hand, turned on his heels, and went striding off.

  * * *

  Rebecca had been moved out of Intensive Care into a small side room off one of the medical wards. Marion was sitting by her bed. She looked up when the ward sister showed me in. The shadows under her eyes like bruises were still there, but the air of weary stoicism had gone and her face was alight with hope.

  She got up and came towards me. Clutching the flowers I had brought in one arm, I put the other around her. She hugged me.

  ‘Oh Cassandra,’ was all she could say.

  The smiling ward sister took the flowers and said, ‘Perhaps you could take Marion down to the café and persuade her to have some lunch. She hasn’t had a break for hours.’

  ‘I didn’t want to miss anything,’ she explained as we went down in the lift. ‘She actually spoke to me earlier on.’

  We settled ourselves in the café.

  ‘It started yesterday afternoon,’ Marion said. ‘I was sitting doing some knitting when I thought I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. I was beginning to think I’d imagined it when I saw it again. Her hand was actually twitching! I was so excited. I went running for the nurse and she got the doctor. He said not to get my hopes up. It might be just a reflex. But it was more than that. He was there standing by the bed with me when she opened her eyes, looked straight at me and said “Mum”.’

  There was a shrill, ear-splitting sound. The fire alarm had gone off. The other people in the café were looking around, some were covering their ears. The noise was so loud and strident that it was impossible to talk, impossible almost to think. Uncertainly we got to our feet. The catering staff were emerging from behind the counter, customers were beginning to move towards the exit. Still the alarm continued, intense, vibrating, almost palpable.

  I felt my baby jerk. I put a protective hand on my belly, and with the other hand snatched up my coat and bag.

  ‘Come on,’ I yelled to Marion.

  She followed me like an automaton. We joined the throng heading towards the main exit. We had almost reached it when, as suddenly as it had begun, the noise ceased. The aftershock was still ringing in my ears when the alarm began again. Still, the brief interruption was enough to break Marion’s trance. She clutched my arm, her face distorted with anxiety.

  ‘Rebecca!’ she said and turned back into the hospital.

  Her path was blocked by a bulky security man in a navy sweater.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t go back in, madam.’

  ‘But my daughter, she’s in there!’

  ‘I’m sorry, madam.’

  She tried to brush past him, but he stretched out his arm to bar the way.

  I grabbed her hand and held it tight.

  ‘Of course he can’t let you back in, Marion. The nurses will look after Rebecca. They’ll know what to do. You’d just be in their way.’

  ‘That’s right, madam. Now you go with this lady.’ he said to Marion. ‘Ten to one it’s a false alarm and you’ll be able to come back again in a bit.’

  Her hand relaxed in mine and I led her onto the forecourt. The throng of people pressing out of the entrance pushed us into the
car park. When we reached a part that was less crowded, we turned and looked back at the hospital. Only then did I release Marion’s hand.

  I scanned the façade of the hospital for fire or smoke. I could see nothing. There was a distant undulating noise that grew more insistent. Two fire engines swept up. Around us, little knots of people were talking animatedly or lighting up cigarettes. I glanced at my watch. It was only three o’clock, but already dusk was in the air. The sky was as grey as stone and a mean little drizzle was falling. A dull ache was spreading across my lower back. Marion shivered.

  ‘You’re not wearing a coat,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve got an old one in the car. Come on, we might as well get in it. We’ll be warmer and I need to sit down. We’ll be able to see when people start going back in.’

  I settled her in the passenger seat and draped the coat around her shoulders. All the fight had been knocked out of her. She sat and stared at the entrance to the hospital, like a dog waiting for its master. I sat in silence, too. I told myself that fire alarms went off all the time: at least they did in St Etheldreda’s, where we found ourselves assembling on the lawn at least once a month. This was probably a false alarm, as the security guard had said, and if not, well, the hospital was a huge place. Rebecca was probably a long way from the fire, and no doubt there were procedures for moving the patients with the minimum of fuss. On and on went the sensible voice in my head, but all the time anxiety was spreading through me like a dark, viscous fluid.

  After about an hour, there was a stirring near the entrance. The crowd flowed towards the door like iron filings pulled by a magnet. We joined it.

  When we got out of the lift on the fifth floor, everything looked as it had earlier in the day. Marion headed towards the ward. It seemed to me that there was something different after all. I stopped and sniffed the air, but it was just the familiar smell of disinfectant. Then I caught it again, the faintest whiff of something unpleasantly acrid.

  Marion had almost reached the swing doors into the ward. As she reached to push them open, they opened outwards and the ward sister came out. She placed her hand on Marion’s arm. The look of compassion on her face sent a chill through me. Marion turned away abruptly, shaking her head and raising her hands in denial. As I moved towards her I saw the blood drain from her face. Her eyes rolled up, her knees buckled. The sister caught her deftly under the arms and lowered her gently to the floor.

  * * *

  Stephen was propped up on the bed wearing his reading glasses. His eyes remained on the document he was reading.

  He said absently, ‘Before I forget, your mother rang. She wanted to know how you are. We had quite a chat.’

  All the misery I felt over Rebecca – and perhaps some left over from Margaret, too – came welling up. I just stood there in the doorway with hot tears rolling down my cheeks.

  ‘Rebecca,’ I managed to say.

  Stephen looked up. He took his glasses off. ‘Oh, no. She’s not…’

  I nodded. I was too choked up to speak.

  ‘Oh, darling. Come here.’ He patted the bed.

  I sat down beside him and he held my hand tightly. Still the tears came. My shoulders started shaking. I caught my breath in gulps. I pulled a sheaf of paper tissues out of the box by the bed. When the worst was over I turned towards Stephen and rested my cheek on his, breathing in his familiar, reassuring smell, He rubbed his face against mine.

  ‘I feel useless,’ he said. ‘I wish I could give you a great big hug.’

  At last I managed to say, ‘Somehow it’s even worse than with Margaret. Rebecca was so young, and just when she seemed to be turning the corner.’

  I thought of her saying ‘Hello, Mum’, and another wave of emotion engulfed me.

  Stephen said, ‘How about a drink?’

  I scrubbed my face with tissues. ‘But what about the baby? And your painkillers?’

  ‘One glass won’t hurt either of us. Where’s the key to the wine cellar?’

  ‘Right here.’

  I took a copy of The Lost Weekend off the top shelf of the makeshift bookcase and opened it. It was hollow. I tipped a key out onto my hand.

  ‘Interesting sense of humour the previous owner had. Give me a hand,’ said Stephen.

  I put my shoulder under his arm and helped him to manoeuvre his way into the kitchen. He lowered himself carefully into a chair at the kitchen table.

  The wine cellar was actually just a large cavity in the kitchen wall where once there had been a chimney. It was blocked off by a shallow cupboard that could be swung back like a door and screwed in place by a key. It did actually contain some bottles of wine – half a dozen that Stephen had given me as a ‘not altogether disinterested’ present – but I had regarded it as an amusing piece of whimsy, until I had thought of a more important use to which it could be put.

  ‘What else do you keep in there?’ Stephen said.

  ‘Apart from wine? Oh, anything that’s worth stealing. You hear horror stories about burglars taking not only the computer but the disks as well, so I’ve got into the habit of keeping backup disks in there, too. And things like my building society passbook. When I’m away my laptop goes in there, as well.’

  I opened a bottle and poured out two glasses.

  ‘We’d better have something to eat with it,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think I could. I’ll cook you something, though.’

  ‘You haven’t had anything since lunch, have you? You must have something. Why don’t you make some scrambled eggs?’

  As I whisked eggs into a bowl I told him what had happened at the hospital.

  ‘The nurses were only away from her for fifteen minutes while they were moving another patient. When they came to move her, she was dead.’

  ‘And there really was a fire?’

  I nodded. ‘I don’t think it could have been a very serious one, or we wouldn’t have been allowed back in so soon.’

  ‘You know, it was always on the cards that she wouldn’t recover. Head injuries are very unpredictable things.’

  ‘Two pieces of toast?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘Look Stephen, suppose someone took advantage of the fire alarm, or perhaps they set if off themselves as a distraction and then…’

  ‘And then what? What could they have done?’

  ‘I don’t know, injected her with something?’ I reached up and took a pan off a hook on the wall.

  ‘With what? Would you know what to do, and how to get hold of a syringe?’

  ‘No, of course not. I bet I could bloody well find out, though!’

  ‘It would take some nerve, and why did they wait until now? It’s been over a month since the accident.’

  ‘Yes, but until yesterday she was in Intensive Care. Don’t you see? No-one could have got to her in there. She was under observation all the time and she was all wired up. No: yesterday would have been the first real opportunity. And the other thing – she was beginning to show signs of recovery. Perhaps she would have been able to tell the police about the attack.’

  ‘Well, there’s bound to be a post-mortem. Because whichever way you slice it, this’ll be a murder inquiry. Even if she wasn’t murdered today, it’ll still be murder if she died as a result of the original attack. If they want to charge someone with that in due course, they’ll need evidence of the cause of death. And if her doctors thought she’d turned the corner and they weren’t expecting her to die, they’ll want to know what happened, too.’

  ‘So maybe they’ll find something – apart from the head injury, I mean. But in any case, I think I’m going to have to talk to the Master.’

  ‘Why not go straight to the police?’

  ‘Lawrence first, I think. After all, if there’s a chance of all this about Lucy and Margaret coming out, forewarned is forearmed. It’ll be much worse if he hears it from someone else.’

  I put two plates of scrambled eggs on the table and sat down opposite Stephen. I was ravenous. Stephen picked up h
is fork carefully.

  I said, ‘I’d better cut that up for you.’

  ‘Oh, good, toast soldiers. Haven’t had those since I was about five. Remind me exactly what Rebecca said to you when she lost her temper.’

  As I dealt with the toast, I cast my mind back. ‘She said that Lucy would still be alive if she hadn’t come to St Etheldreda’s.’

  ‘You know, Cass, I do think what happened to Lucy was an accident.’ He made a gesture to indicate his injuries, and winced at the effort.

  ‘So do I, really.’ I turned my attention to my own plate. ‘But this with Rebecca … Someone did attack her in the first place. No doubt about that.’

  ‘I’ll tell you who would be able to find their way into Addenbrooke’s carrying a syringe,’ Stephen said suddenly. ‘Who better than a doctor? What about Jane?’

  ‘Jane!’ I stared at him, a forkful of scrambled egg halfway to my mouth. I thought of Jane as she had been the evening before, holding up the syringe, her thoughtful expression as she injected Stephen.

  ‘Has she been here today?’ I asked.

  ‘No. The district nurse came this time.’

  I came to my senses. ‘No, it’s ridiculous. For one thing, she’d be afraid of being recognized.’

  ‘Not necessarily. I don’t suppose GPs actually meet consultants and nurses all that often. When they refer patients, they do it via a letter, don’t they? And she’d know what to inject into Rebecca and how to get hold of it.’

  ‘No, stop! Stop!’ I buried my face in my hands. ‘What possible reason could she have for doing that? You can’t really think that!’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t. But without evidence of any kind, one theory is as good as another. I think you’re right. It’s best to go to the police. Probably they’ll find that most of your department, including the students, will have been in lectures or tutorials, or whatever, won’t they? That’ll put your mind at rest.’

  ‘Well, actually, there isn’t any teaching on Wednesday afternoons. That’s to allow students to play sport. I suppose some of them do, but I bet a lot of them go shopping or have sex or simply lie on their beds listening to the Manic Street Preachers.’