Grave Consequences

by Dana Cameron

  I nodded. “I felt a little lagged, earlier in the afternoon, but I’ve got a second wind now.”

  “They won’t mind us in our work clothes,” Jane said, “so we’ll just go straight there, once we’ve closed up for the night.” She looked up at the sky to gauge the weather.

  Like most crews, this one was speeded along by the promise of a beer, and as we departed, they were hastily covering their work with plywood and tarps. Jane, Greg, and I walked down the street toward the Prince of Wales.

  “You been keeping up with your running, Emma?” Jane inquired. She and I often found each other in the gym at conference hotels.

  What was this fascination with my exercise habits? I wondered. First Pooter, now Jane. “Yes.”

  “Well, I go to the university athletics club a couple of times a week and I’m going tomorrow before work. I didn’t know whether you’d care to join me?”

  “I don’t usually bother when I’m in the field,” I said, “but it would probably do me good. Clear out the cobwebs. Thanks.”

  “And we’ll stop by the cafe on our way,” Jane promised.

  The last little bit of hesitation melted away from me. “Better and better.”

  “Here we are,” Greg announced, and held the door open for us.

  I hadn’t even had time to adjust my eyes to the dim light when I heard a voice greet my friends. “Missed you last night, Professors! Wasn’t the same without you. Usual for you both?”

  “Yes, please, Ian,” Greg answered. “And for you, Emma?”

  “Whatever you’re having,” I said, a little confused. I’d had the impression that the pub was a treat, a big deal for Jane and Greg. They looked at me, barely suppressing their mirth.

  “And another bitter, as well, Ian.” Greg looked at his wife, who nodded. “Pint, please. And one for yourself.”

  “Ta very much. I’ll bring them right over.”

  We’d no sooner sat down then the bartender brought over our drinks. “Kev got his new guitar today,” he said to Jane.

  “Good for him! He’s had his eye on it forever—”

  But the bartender cut her off, other plans on his mind. “He said he’ll try it out for us, if you promise to sing.”

  “Oh, I don’t think—” Jane began, but the bartender waved her off.

  “Course you will. And the next round’s on me, to seal the bargain.” And he was off before she could reply.

  “What do I owe you?” I asked Greg.

  “My round,” he said, shaking his head.

  I wasn’t quite certain what that meant, but said, “Thanks,” and raised my glass.

  Greg and Jane beat me to it. “Cheers,” they both said.

  And with that, they drained off more than half their respective drinks in a single draught. I blinked; clearly I was in the company of heavyweights and any talk about the pub as an event was utter leg-pulling. I did my best to catch up.

  The students came in and waved to us. I moved over instinctively to make room for them, but they congregated at a table just out of earshot of our own. Jane caught the eye of the bartender, who nodded, and after a moment, brought a tray of foaming beer glasses over for the students, who in turn, thanked her. Andrew then entered, and without a word, pushed a low stool over from the next table with his foot and joined us. Without even asking us, he called out, “Same again, here, Ian,” to the bartender, busy now with the growing crowd of after-work drinkers.

  “You’d better drink up, Emma,” Jane said, finishing her glass.

  I suddenly realized what was going on. If each drinker at our table took a turn buying a round, as seemed to be the custom, by the end of the evening, I would have consumed four pints, well beyond my usual weeknight’s consumption. Five, if the bartender kept his word. Six, if I were to buy a round as well, as it seemed I ought. How could I honorably refuse so many drinks?

  I was in deep, deep trouble here.

  We drank off the next beer, now shouting a little to be heard over the noise, but it was clear that drinking and not conversation was the real order of the day. Suddenly, the bartender brought over the promised round and said, “You’re on, Jane, Kevin’s ready. Time to sing for your supper.”

  The change that came over Jane—indeed, the rest of the pub—was remarkable. Suddenly, all was quiet, except for a few calls of “Now, then, Kev,” and “Quiet, Jane Compton’s going to sing.” Jane conferred with Kevin, a young kid who’d been working behind the bar washing glasses, as he pulled out a beautiful acoustic guitar from a brand new case and began to tune it reverently. She nodded, and I could hear her say, “Rockville.” As Kevin began to play the introduction—a rock tune with country overtones—the crowd quieted instantly. All the tension drained out of Jane’s face, her shoulders relaxed for the first time since I’d seen her, and then she began to sing.

  Her voice was not sweet, but rather aching with soul and remorse. I don’t listen to modern rock, but I recognized the tune from the REM tapes I had stolen from my sister’s collection and soon I realized that she was blowing the doors off the way the song had originally been sung. Her voice was clean and controlled and she worked it—and the crowd—for everything it was worth. I’d never seen Jane like that before, passionate, relaxed, and effortlessly powerful: I’d never suspected she was capable of that range of emotion and mastery.

  She and Kevin didn’t even notice the applause at the end of the song, but, so eager to begin again, started right in on the next one. I recognized this one right away; Annie Lennox’s “Why.” The guitar player was very good, easily translating the super-orchestrated ballad into a simple guitar solo, but we hardly noticed because Jane was singing.

  I looked around, amazed, and saw that the others were equally transfixed: Greg had a look of unparalleled adoration on his face, as if recognizing the girl he married for the first time in a long time; the snotty Trevor was awestruck, I thought, perhaps perceiving that this was something that he would never be able to imagine, never be able convey to another mortal soul; the rest of the crew was rapt, some with concentration, some with wonder. This was how she bound them together, I realized; her focus, her ardor, sometimes slipping beneath the surface of her all-too-present nerves, were crystal clear at the moment. She set high standards that she expected them to achieve because she met the high standards she set for herself, and they knew it. The only one who wasn’t entirely focused on Jane was Andrew.

  Through each song he stared straight into the thin foam that remained on the top of his half-emptied beer. His hand was clenched around the glass so tightly that I thought he would shatter it. Finally, even before the song was finished, I watched him slip silently out of the pub, unremarked by anyone else, closing the door silently behind him.

  The applause as she finished was exuberant. Jane, flushed with effort and pride, launched into a Billie Holiday lament. She finished that to utter silence, followed by immediate cries for more. People were pressing her to go on, to sing another song, when the door opened again and slammed against the opposite wall, and this time everyone was aware of it.

  A young man barged in. “They’ve just found Julia Whiting!”

  Instantly the mood of the pub altered to disbelief. The blood drained utterly from Jane’s face.

  “My God, where is she?” was the variation of the question everyone was asking.

  “They found her in a skip on the construction site, the new block of flats on Leather Street—!”

  “What’s a skip?” I whispered to Greg, who’d gone white.

  “A waste container, a—what do you call them? Dumpster.”

  “Is she okay?” someone called.

  “She’s dead!”

  And for some reason, every pair of eyes returned to fix on the ashen face of my friend Jane.

  Chapter 6

  I AWOKE WITH A JOLT THE NEXT MORNING. I GLANCED at my watch, and with a heavy sigh, slumped back into my pillow: it was just seven o’clock. There was plenty of time to consider the events of the previo
us evening before it was time to get ready for work. But…maybe just another half hour of sleep first. Ten minutes, even. I was in no way ready to go out and face all that I knew was out there.

  Just as I’d scrunched back down under the covers and achieved the optimum balance of warmth and darkness, with a little tunnel for fresh air, there was a brisk rap at the door. For nearly ten seconds, I managed to convince myself that the knocking was on someone else’s door, Andrew’s, maybe, but then was forced back to reality by Jane’s voice, crisply calling, “Morning, Emma! You up yet?”

  “No,” I said into the pillow. Then, louder, “Yes, I’m up.”

  Taking that as an invitation, Jane came in. She was dressed in a smart gray tracksuit and had a bag over her shoulder. “Still up for that run?”

  I sat up and looked at her in disbelief. “Well, I just thought that since—”

  “If you’re too tired, I’ll understand,” she said, a concerned look on her face. “Actually, we got to bed pretty late last night, maybe you should just have a lie in, today.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, annoyed. I swung my legs to the floor and rubbed my face. “Just give me a minute.”

  “Great! I’ll see you downstairs.” Jane banged the door shut and I could hear her bounce down the stairs with far too much enthusiasm. If anyone should have been in need of a lie in, especially after last night, shouldn’t it have been Jane?

  I dug through my suitcase, found my running stuff, and pulled myself together. Down in the kitchen, I saw Greg feeding Hildegard, his morning ritual. His face was haggard and he was preoccupied—or pretended to be so—and barely looked up as Jane said good-bye and we left.

  True to Jane’s promise, we stopped for a coffee at the cafe. Aunty Mads brightened at our arrival, then, when she saw that Greg wasn’t with us, her face fell and she became almost sulky. I wasn’t surprised when Jane asked if we couldn’t please have our drinks to go.

  “I was trying to figure out by the buildings,” I said, when Aunty Mads handed us our coffee, “which side of town was older. I’m having a hard time deciding because everything on both sides of the river looks like pretty new construction.”

  “That’s the war,” Mads said. “Both sides got hit hard during the bombings, because of the factory, so it was all rebuilt after. But across the river is older; the abbey was built because there wasn’t any room on the other side, and then the town spread around it, see.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got an interest in local history,” I said, lapping up the extra coffee that had spilled onto the lid of the paper cup.

  “Well, now, I wouldn’t say that. No, I wouldn’t say that at all,” Mads objected. “That’s what they told us in school, about the abbey and the town, and it stuck with me. I never open a book, if I can help it, except for biographical ones about film stars. And as far as history goes, I think it ought to be let lie.” With a pointed look at Jane, Mads turned to the case full of sandwiches and began to reorganize them into neat rows with some asperity.

  Jane shot me a look that said, “Thanks for bringing that up,” and we left.

  Walking down the street, the coffee, burnt as it was, convinced me that the world wasn’t really such a bad place, I tried my hand at more serious conversation. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be: all it took was caffeine. I’ve often thought that if chimpanzees had discovered coffee, they’d also have worked out speech too.

  “Greg seemed pretty quiet this morning,” I offered. It was my way of bringing up last night’s revelations.

  “Umm. Yes, he was a bit.” Jane’s lips compressed as she strode down the street. We traveled the next several blocks to the gym in silence, me with the growing concern that Jane was avoiding something.

  The University Athletics Club was modern, nicely appointed, and relatively—by American standards—empty for this time of morning. Just two other hardy souls working with weight machines, and, if their faces were anything to judge by, they were considering the mammalian qualities of the breakfast blonde on the television on the wall. Jane and I dropped off our bags in the locker room and found a couple of treadmills side by side. It took me a minute to sort out the unfamiliar controls but soon we were warming up. After a few moments, I increased my speed to a fast jog. Jane followed suit.

  “Pretty dramatic last night,” Jane announced at last. “Bound to complicate work at the site today.”

  I thought about the crowd at the pub after the announcement. After the initial shock wore off, the place was abuzz with the news of Julia Whiting’s death. We’d left soon after, all the calm attending Jane’s singing irreparably shattered. I was actually surprised that she should bring it up. “I suppose so,” I said slowly. “Lots of curiosity seekers.”

  “Bloody ghouls. Even if it was too late for the morning paper, it’s odds on everyone in Marchester already knows. Poor Julia; I hate that she’s become gossip fodder; it makes her death all the more appalling. That’s what I hate about these small towns. You can’t move without the news of it racing around the pub, and the market, and the post office.”

  The ferocity of Jane’s words surprised me. “Why not move?”

  Jane looked grimly determined. “The job, of course. I’m not about to give that up.”

  “There are other jobs,” I pointed out. “It’s a good market at the moment.”

  “Not when I’ve worked so hard to secure this one. I’ve got tenure, and they’re not about to shake me off now. And of course, there’s the house. It’s Greg’s, you know.”

  I hadn’t known.

  “His grandmother left it to him. It’s why we decided on Marchester when the job offers came; just one less thing to worry about, financially.” She sounded resentful, though I couldn’t tell whether it was because Greg removed some worry or the simple fact of his grandmother’s bequest.

  “Well, it can hardly be worth it, if you’re so unhappy—”

  “Who’s unhappy?” Jane jogged along, her face set. “I’m perfectly happy. I’m exactly where I want to be. My job isn’t perfect, but I’m carving into something that will be, someday. I’ve just been allocated new lab space. The site is shaping up. I’m doing precisely what I’ve always wanted. Starting to make quite a nice little reputation for myself.”

  I thought about this as I trotted alongside Jane, comparing her overly upbeat words with what I’d heard about her reputation in the town, the tension between her and what seemed to be everyone else. Hardly ideal. But on the other hand, Jane spoke of her reputation as if it was a new thing, whereas, as far as everyone I knew was concerned, she was one of the top people in her field. It just didn’t make sense to me.

  I noticed that the faster Jane ran, the more voluble she became. I increased the speed of my treadmill again, building up a nice, steady rhythm.

  She continued. “And I’ve got more students doing advanced work than I ever have had before.”

  “Julia was one of them?”

  Suddenly, Jane’s face turned stony. “Yes, she was. And she nearly drove me round the twist, that girl.”

  “How’s that?” The change in my friend was startling.

  “Oh, well,” she said. “Well, when Julia started the postgraduate program, she was very quiet, almost withdrawn, and her work was only solidly average. But she responded to the least little encouragement and about midway through the first half of the term, something turned on a lightbulb for her and she took off like a shot—”

  Based on what I’d heard from her other students, I thought it was very likely that it was Jane’s instruction that had so completely awakened Julia.

  “She ate it all up. Devoured any book you cared to suggest and began working at a level that you usually expect of much more advanced students, but with equally big holes in her learning. She really just didn’t have the experience to back up what she was studying out of books.”

  “Jane, that’s easily fixed. She sounds like she was having a great time of it.”

  “Well, she was, but she
kept haring on ahead of everyone else. Made it dreadfully difficult to conduct a seminar when it was just her and me arguing about theory. The other students always felt a bit left out and I felt compelled to rein her in a bit, for their sakes.”

  “Jeez, I’d kill for a student like that.”

  “Ah, well, you say so, but she never seemed to give my lectures any credence. She was always questioning me,” Jane puffed, her brow creased with concentration and memory. “Don’t get me wrong. I like to encourage bright students, especially the women—have to create a support system within the hegemony, don’t we? But her precocity did wear thin, that I can promise you.”

  I set the speed for my usual fastest pace now, and noticed that Jane was monitoring my speed too: as soon as I increased my pace, she did the same, or even went a tenth or two faster. I rolled my eyes inwardly; fine, Jane, whatever. You win.

  Perhaps Jane thought her words sounded too harsh; she seemed to reconsider. “I mean to say, her work was first rate. Really excellent…if a little erratic. Just a bit off the mark, simply because she hadn’t bothered to master the basics.” She was breathing heavily between sentences. “Built a foundation first. I felt like I was always trying to slow her down. For the sake of her future work. You must crawl before you can walk.”

  I was becoming uncomfortable; Jane hadn’t been much of a crawler herself. There was something a little creepy going on here and I wondered if it wasn’t time to change the subject. “Apart from work, though, you’ve got Greg, of course.”

  Jane’s face, lightly filmed with perspiration, was now carefully neutral. “Well, yes, of course.” She ran a few more steps. “Though that’s not entirely Edenic at the moment.”

  “Oh?” I took a sip from my water bottle and returned it to the holder.

  Jane nodded. “We’re just at one of those dreadful crossroads, you see. Greg wants to start a family and I’m simply not ready. Still too many things to sort out first.”

  I frowned. “But do you want children?”