by Ed O'Connor
19
Dexter drove away from the library car park. Her librarian contact, Dan, was an ex-boyfriend and was far less attractive than she had remembered. She smiled bitterly to herself and wondered why Fate always cast such tossers in her direction. Still, despite his lack of personality, Dan had been extremely helpful: he’d recognized the line of text immediately and had recited the rest of the piece. He was arrogant with his intelligence. It was a fragment from a poem by a writer whom she had never heard of. She was none the wiser in reality but at least they had identified the source. Underwood could figure out the rest.
Dexter considered calling him on her mobile. She decided not to. It was as if she needed to tell him face to face. She felt that if she called him it would somehow detract from what she had discovered. In her absence, Underwood would most likely call in Harrison to discuss the information. Then the line of responsibility for turning up this piece of evidence would be blurred. She would get no recognition. Female officers needed recognition more than the men. They had more obstacles to overcome: they had to attach themselves more aggressively to success stories or risk being overlooked in the general orgy of backslapping. She wondered if she was making excuses.
Dexter had always felt an inexplicable need to prove herself to Underwood. Prove herself. Was that the right way to express it? No. It wasn’t so much proving herself as wanting to please him. The thought made her shudder. Dexter had tried to purge herself of flirtatiousness, of the clinginess she so despised in some other female officers.
She turned her car along the dual carriageway that swung alongside New Bolden Parkway station. Was she any different from Jensen? The WPC overtly flirted with male officers, even slept with some of them. Didn’t Dexter’s own desire to please Underwood grow from the same emotional root? She wondered what that was. Insecurity? A perception of inferiority? Absence of a paternal influence? She almost made herself laugh at that last one. Dexter hadn’t known her own father so she didn’t regard herself as an expert. However, Underwood didn’t strike her as much of a father figure. He was weak, even vulnerable in many ways. She often felt that she was carrying him, nursing him through his insecurities and inefficiencies. Her mind flipped the question over. Perhaps it was some misguided maternal instinct in her. The thought made her shiver. She wondered if she was going mad.
Dexter tried to clear her head, to focus on other things. She always found it hard to concentrate first thing in the mornings. Maybe because the previous night’s dreams and nightmares were still close: still swimming near to the surface in the back of her mind. Her head was a wrecking ground early in the morning: thoughts and emotions scattered without meaning, ideas that were once beautiful smashed to pieces.
Concentrate. She stared through the dirty glass windscreen at the white lines sliding beneath her and the stretch of grey tarmac arcing to the right ahead. She tried to build a logical structure. This was always her reaction to concepts she couldn’t understand. It usually worked. A girl is killed with a hammer. Why? Ease of execution. Dexter tried not to smile at her unintentional pun.
A hammer blow to the back of the head will undoubtedly put the victim down quickly. Possibly even kill them immediately. That’s what happened to Lucy Harrington. She was a strong girl, an athlete. Maybe our killer didn’t fancy his chances face to face. Is he physically weak? The killing blow would have happened very quickly. Maybe the act of killing doesn’t excite him. The eye. That’s why he killed her. That’s the key to all this.
Dexter pulled up at a traffic light. There was a scruffy-looking man with a silver nose-stud selling roses at the roadside: five for three pounds. Flowers. Flowers are important to him. Does he deliver flowers? Is that how he found Lucy Harrington? She discounted the idea. It was too obvious, too easy to trace. The killer was too smart for that. And then there’s the poem. Written in blood on a white-tiled wall. Very melodramatic. A cliché, almost. The killer wants us to read the poem. Why? How can a poem written four hundred-odd years ago be important? Eyes, flowers and poetry: another interesting bloke, another messed-up limp-dick. A car hooted behind her. The lights had changed.
She came back again to the image of Lucy Harrington’s eye, gouged from its socket. She stopped and corrected herself. It hadn’t been gouged. What had Leach the pathologist said? The killer had tried to do it scientifically and had eventually resorted to brute force. There was method in the madness. He had researched his subject carefully. What instruments would you need to remove an eye? A scalpel to cut and forceps to pull the eyeball from the socket. What else? Leach didn’t think our man was a doctor so where did he get the instruments he needed? Was he from a medical family? A long shot but it was a possibility. Where do you buy medical instruments? Are there shops? Trade fairs, maybe? She made a mental note to check.
Dexter pulled up outside the station and hurried inside. The desk sergeant nodded curtly at her as she swiped her access card and hurried upstairs. Underwood’s office was on the third floor and she was glowing slightly by the time she arrived. Underwood was standing with his back to the door, staring out of the window. He had his coat on. His hair was a matted mess, Dexter noted despite herself.
‘You all right, sir?’ she asked.
Underwood turned and smiled faintly. His eyes were blackened at the edges and he looked exhausted. ‘I’m fine, Dex. Full of flu.’
‘There’s a lot of it about.’
‘There always is.’
Dexter prepared herself. ‘I’ve got some good news, sir.’ She pulled a folded piece of paper from her back pocket. ‘The writing on the wall at Lucy Harrington’s house.’ She savoured her moment of triumph and watched Underwood’s face closely as she spoke. ‘It’s from a poem. My friend at the library photocopied it for me. The poem’s called “A Valediction” …’
‘“A Valediction: Of Weeping”’ Underwood cut her off. He picked up a note from his desk and read aloud, ‘Written around 1620 by John Donne.’ He looked up at her. Dexter tried to disguise her disappointment. She failed.
‘Pardon my asking, sir, but how the bloody hell did you find that out?’ Dexter was angry. Life only stole things from her when she started to get excited about them.
‘I’ll tell you in the car.’ He picked his keys off the desk and tossed them over to Dexter. ‘You’re driving.’
The car crawled out of New Bolden in heavy traffic and turned towards Cambridge. Underwood sat in the front passenger seat, increasingly aware of the sweat soaking his back. He felt empty: as if the only thing that defined him now was his illness and exhaustion. So this was how it felt when you eventually realized your life was meaningless. He had spent years preparing for the moment but it still stung him like a hornet. His mind wandered through the previous night’s events. He would call Harrison later about the licence plate. Dexter half-turned to him as they finally broke free of the traffic and settled at a comfortable seventy miles an hour.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on, sir?’
‘I received a call this morning at eight from a Dr Heather Stussman. She’s a lecturer at the university. She was pretty freaked out. She thinks the guy who killed Lucy Harrington telephoned her yesterday.’
Dexter was shocked. ‘What makes her think it’s our bloke?’ She was finding it hard to concentrate on the road.
‘She got a letter in the post, a letter containing a line of poetry. Then yesterday afternoon some bloke called her, asked her if she’d received his letter and told her to watch the news. He didn’t mention Lucy Harrington but guess what the line of poetry was …’
‘Draw not up seas, to drowne me in thy spheare?’
‘Bingo.’
‘But the writing on the wall isn’t public knowledge yet. How did she know our man was talking about Lucy Harrington?’
‘That’s a very good point. I guess we’ll find out.’
‘Why did he call her? Who is she, anyway?’
‘She’s an expert. Fellow of Southwell College. She published a boo
k on John Donne’s poems last year. She’s quite a big fish. American.’ Underwood frowned as the hulk of New Bolden power station loomed beside them. ‘He told her to watch the news and explain it to the police.’
‘Explain it to us?’
‘Fucked-up or what?’
They approached Cambridge from the north, passing the entrance to Girton College then turning left onto Chesterton Road. The ring road slowly brought them around the city, with Dexter zigzagging energetically to avoid cyclists until they swung right at Parker’s Piece and crossed into Lensfield Road. Southwell College was at the southern end of the city, backing onto the river. On instructions from Underwood, Dexter parked outside the Fitzwilliam Museum and the two of them walked up to the Southwell porter’s lodge. Dexter shivered. It was always cold in Cambridge at this time of year, just as it had been in East London.
Southwell College was a mish-mash of architectural styles reflecting the building’s spasmodic evolution through the centuries. The sixteenth-century first quad was lined with flower boxes and was far more attractive than the dark Victorian court that had grown up behind it. Like many of the colleges, the desire to expand had also encouraged Southwell to build a monstrous, modern accommodation block. It sat uneasily next to the college gardens like an uninvited guest at a family reunion.
The porter directed Underwood and Dexter to Stussman’s rooms in the second quad. Dexter slowed down diplomatically at the foot of the old wooden staircase and allowed Underwood to take the lead. She knew he was more likely to have difficulties with the ascent than her. Stussman heard them approaching and was waiting at the entrance to her rooms on the first-floor landing.
‘Inspector Underwood?’ She held out her hand.
Underwood was impressed. Stussman had thick black shoulder-length hair and brilliant stone-blue eyes. She had a firm handshake, too.
‘Pleased to meet you, Dr Stussman.’ Underwood was trying not to gawp. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Dexter.’
‘Nice to meet you, sergeant,’ said Stussman. No hand was offered this time. Dexter didn’t mind: she was used to that. Stussman led them inside. The living room had the typically chaotic feel of an academic’s office. One wall was entirely dedicated to books, from floor to ceiling. Dexter ran her eye across the titles: lots of poetry books and biographies. She didn’t recognize many of them. On Stussman’s desk was a vast glacier of paper that was threatening to spill onto the carpet. Her computer was an old-fashioned Apple Mac that seemed to be feeling its age. There were two armchairs: Underwood fell gratefully into one. Dexter remained standing.
Stussman was leaning against her desk. Underwood’s eyes moved along the firm lines of her legs. Julia had great legs too. Desire and despair ambushed him again: the double helix burned in his heart. He cleared his throat.
‘Dr Stussman. For Sergeant Dexter’s benefit and my own, could you talk us through yesterday’s events and explain why you called us?’
‘Sure. I received this letter yesterday.’ She handed Underwood the envelope. He held it carefully at the edges. Stussman continued, ‘I didn’t open it at first. I got a call just after six p.m. when I got back from giving a lecture.’ She lit a cigarette. She seemed shaky. ‘The guy on the phone asked if I had received his letter. I guessed it was this one so I pulled the envelope from my bag and opened it. He asked me if I recognized it. I said I did and that is was a line from “A Valediction: Of Weeping”.’ Stussman looked over at Dexter. ‘That’s a poem by John Donne.’
‘I know,’ Dexter said sharply.
‘He told me that I should watch the news and explain it to the police. Then he hung up.’
‘Did he have an accent?’ asked Underwood.
‘He was English. Beyond that I wouldn’t really know.’
‘What did you do then?’ Dexter asked.
‘Well … nothing, I’m afraid. I thought it was a practical joke. The academic world is a very spiteful one, Sergeant Dexter. My papers have proved pretty controversial. I assumed someone was trying to freak me out. Then, late last night, I saw the news.’
‘About Lucy Harrington?’ Underwood was watching her closely.
‘Yes. Then I panicked. You see, the name Lucy Harrington is significant. In the context of John Donne’s poetry, that is.’
‘How so?’ Dexter had started making notes.
‘Donne was one of a group of English poets writing in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The group subsequently became known as the Metaphysical Poets.’
‘This is your area of expertise?’ Underwood asked, his gaze drifting.
‘Yes. My doctoral thesis was on the stylistic variations between Donne and his contemporary, George Herbert. I recently published a book on the life of Donne.’
‘What does “metaphysical” mean?’ Dexter was confused.
‘Literally, it means “beyond physics”. The Renaissance was an intellectual revolution that encouraged writers and philosophers to question the accepted principles of scientific and religious thought.’ Stussman noticed that Dexter had stopped writing. ‘The Metaphysical Poets tried to address intellectual issues that were beyond the ability of science to explain.’
‘Such as?’
‘Love, life, spirituality, God, death. Take your pick. The poems were tightly argued explorations of the ideas surrounding these “metaphysical concepts”. John Donne is the best known and most able of all the metaphysical poets.’
‘You say these poems are arguments?’ Underwood was struggling to understand.
‘Yes, most of them. Remember that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the written word was less important than the spoken one. Few people could actually read. In fact, Donne’s poems weren’t published until after his death. During his lifetime the poems were generally read aloud to friends, groups of like-minded intellectuals.’
‘You said that the name Lucy Harrington was significant?’ Dexter asked.
‘That’s when I made the connection. You see, Lucy Harrington, or Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford, to give her her full title, was one of Donne’s patrons. One of his coterie of intellectual friends, you might say. When I heard the murdered girl was called Lucy Harrington I realized that this was what the guy on the phone wanted me to know about. I got scared and I called you first thing.’
The information sent a shiver of electricity down Underwood’s spine. This was the first indication of why the killer had selected Lucy Harrington. The choice of victim had been troubling Underwood: there were easier targets everywhere – schoolkids, the prostitutes behind New Bolden Station. Why risk attacking such a high-profile target unless it meant something special? He suddenly felt that the balance had shifted slightly in his favour. Or had it? After all, the killer had wanted this to happen.
‘Dr Stussman, I’ll need you to provide us with a list of Donne’s associates. People like Lucy Harrington: patrons, girlfriends, the people who were close to him.’
‘No problem.’
‘The line of poetry that was sent to you was also written on the wall of Lucy Harrington’s bathroom. That isn’t public yet. Keep it to yourself,’ Underwood said.
‘Jesus Christ.’ Stussman shuddered. ‘Do you think this fucked-up bastard is going to come after me?’
‘Let’s not get carried away,’ said Underwood. ‘Is there anyone you can think of – a student, someone who knows you – who might want to do something like this?’
Stussman shook her head. ‘No one. A few dodgy ex-boyfriends …’
‘I’m sure,’ said Dexter unnecessarily. Underwood fired a withering look in her direction. ‘Haven’t we all?’ she added quickly.
‘The man who phoned you, he asked you to explain the poem to us. Could you do that, please? Maybe something you say might be useful. Assume that neither of us knows anything about this,’ said Underwood. Stussman turned and retrieved two pieces of paper from her desk. She handed a piece each to Dexter and Underwood. She tried to collect her thoughts.
�
��Here’s a transcription of the poem. I’ll read it to you. Follow along in the text. As I said, Donne intended that the poem should be read aloud.’ Stussman began to recite the poem from memory. Her gaze floated to the window as she spoke and fixed on the spire of the college chapel.
‘Let me power forth
My tears before thy face, whil’st I stay here
For thy face coines them, and with thy stampe they beare,
And by this mintage they are something worth
For thus they bee
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much griefe they are, emblemes of more
When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore
So thou and I are nothing then when on a divers shore.
‘On a round ball
A workeman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afrique, and an Asia
And quickly make that which was nothing All,
So doth each teare,
Which thee doth weare,
A globe, yea world by that impression grow,
Till thy teares mixt with mine doe overflow,
This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.
‘O More than Moone,
Draw not up seas to drowne me in thy spheare,
Weepe me not dead, in thine arms, but forbeare
To teach the sea, what it may doe too soone;
Let not the winde
Example finde,
To doe me more harm, than it purposeth;
Since thou and I sigh one anothers breath,
Who e’r sighes most is cruellest, and hasts the others death.’
Dexter looked at Underwood and shrugged. Stussman caught the movement out of the corner of her eye. She took a deep breath.