Dying on Principle

by Judith Cutler

  ‘So she could have said to X that if he or she didn’t stop whatever it was, she’d go to someone in authority,’ Chris overrode me. ‘Who would that be, at Muntz? Blake? Curtis?’

  ‘Blake’s the boss, of course. But he’s elusive, and in any case Curtis would probably be in charge of the day-to-day finances. I haven’t quite worked out who does what yet – and just to confuse me further they keep on changing their job titles. You could ask.’

  ‘I could indeed.’

  ‘But then, what if one of them was involved?’

  Chris laughed. ‘Sophie, you are incorrigible! It’s a good job you didn’t work for the Inquisition – you’d have sniffed out heretics all over the place. Especially in high places.’

  ‘Where better to sniff them out?’

  Although Chris had phoned Ian to get people on to the tedious job of trying to locate the tarpaulin, he decided, as I knew he would, that he wanted to get back to Rose Road and the heart of the investigation. But he didn’t take much persuading to go via the garden centre run by Birmingham University.

  He was staggering to his car under an enormous bag of all-purpose compost, and I was at the till by the open door paying for trays of petunias, impatiens, trailing lobelia and sweet outdoor herbs, when I heard a familiar voice.

  ‘I was saying to my wife here – this is Sophie from work, June; Sophie, this is the wife – you always meet people when you go out. Mrs Cavendish yesterday in Rackhams, though she looked as if she hadn’t expected to find the likes of me there, and then young Darren down by the crematorium when I was visiting my old mum, if you see what I mean, and now you.’

  ‘Hi, Phil. Nice to meet—’

  June juggled two trays of snapdragons and a pot of sweet peas and shook hands with me.

  ‘Like I was saying, it’s funny seeing these old tills. Expect everything to be properly computerised – bar-codes and that.’ He shifted a tray of young lupins more comfortably on to the other hip.

  We watched the man operating the till count and recount the petunias, and I was just about to trot out the Brian Hanrahan comment about counting them out and counting them in again, when something more important occurred to me. ‘Have you managed to crack Dr Trevelyan’s password yet, Phil?’

  ‘Went back to paper files in the end. Seemed to be nasty little close-down instructions on the program.’

  ‘What’ll you do? Take the thing apart and run it in bits?’

  He nodded. ‘And as I was saying, you can’t wait. You need paper and toner and that when you need them, not when Her Royal Highness comes back to work. If, I should say. Not to mention computers. Need to replace those that were nicked.’

  ‘Do we get many nicked?’

  ‘Bloody shoplifting, that’s what it’s like. No respect, these days. Buy them ten at a time; only seven or eight left at the end of the month. Blame me and the team, of course. Lack of security, they say. But half the locks haven’t worked for months, and you’re right, you can report till you’re blue in the face but no one takes any notice.’

  Did I dare risk it? ‘Who checks them in, Phil? When the new ones arrive?’

  He looked at me blankly.

  ‘Is it your job of hers? Dr T’s?’

  ‘Funny you should say that,’ said June the wife. ‘Had a bit of a cross word at Christmas about that, you and the lady doctor.’

  ‘I told you, lovey, she’s not that sort of doctor.’

  ‘What sort of cross word?’ I prompted.

  ‘Nothing much. Not that you’d call cross. And like June said, if someone wants you to do less work, you shouldn’t really argue, should you?’

  ‘Less work?’ That didn’t accord with what little I knew of Trevelyan.

  ‘Well, you might say less – though of course she found me other little things to do. But when she came, she went through all our job descriptions, crossing bits off here and there, and putting other bits in.’

  I was almost screaming as Chris came back towards the open door. I willed him to keep out of the way a bit longer.

  ‘So how did she change yours? What did she take off you?’ I added hurriedly, afraid he might embark on a list – he already had his fingers ready to tick off items.

  ‘Well, as I said, it’s funny you should ask that. Security, for a start. Used to be my job, that. And I did it a damn sight better than her. I used to ID them in one of those pens—’

  ‘Ultraviolet,’ said June, shuffling her burden.

  ‘I told you, lovey, it’s the light that’s ultraviolet, that you read it by. And she took responsibility, she called it, for everything to do with ordering. Everything. She said it was because of this incorporation business.’

  Another couple of people were now heading towards the cashdesk. I moved us slowly out into the sun as I repeated, ‘Everything? So she decided what was needed, ordered, handled the invoices, signed for delivery?’

  He nodded.

  Over his shoulder Chris was listening intently.

  ‘Seems a lot of work to take on if you’re running a college department,’ I said. ‘On top of her teaching.’

  Phil snorted: ‘Her? Teach? No, that was the first thing she got out of. Tried to get me to do some, part of my new job description, see. Told her where to put that, didn’t I, lovey?’

  ‘Quite right,’ I said. ‘But you’ve managed to dig out enough of the paper records to know where to order new stock – that’s brilliant. I had this vision of us all writing on clay tablets or something.’

  ‘Some of the suppliers were a bit funny about supplying stuff at short notice, mind.’

  ‘But surely, an old and valued customer like Muntz? Big contracts – must be worth a bit, Phil.’

  ‘You can say that again. But seems we hadn’t ordered from some of them for quite a while.’

  ‘Since Dr T arrived?’ I asked.

  ‘Come to think of it, yes. Must have found somewhere cheaper, I suppose. But I can’t bloody find out, can I!’

  ‘No need to swear, Philip.’

  ‘Sorry, lovey. Tell you what, Soph, I might just take a sickie tomorrow and see what I can dig out of her computer. How about that?’

  I smiled encouragingly and then brought Chris into the conversation. Phil looked from one to the other.

  ‘But you’re the policeman.’

  ‘Sophie’s friend, too. Don’t worry, I haven’t come to arrest her, just to carry her petunias.’ He took them from me, gave them back while he shook hands with June, and then took them once more. ‘What did Dr Trevelyan do before she came to George Muntz?’ he asked casually.

  ‘Like I told one of your lasses, she never said much about it, her previous place. Sophie here, she’s always saying, “We do so-and-so at William Murdock”.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m sure I don’t mean to compare—’

  ‘Only natural. Like I was saying to my June here, it’s only natural you should compare the way Sainsbury’s does something with the way Safeway does it. Right? But not Dr T. Mind you, she never talked to us much. Hoi polloi, that’s us. Anyway, like we said, got to get on, ere the setting sun. And I haven’t even got any slug pellets yet. Come on, June, what are you thinking of, letting me forget those? Here, put this lot in the car, lovey …’

  Chris laid a hand lightly on my forearm and we tried to look casual as we strolled back to his car. We were talking about the merits of different types of fertiliser when we passed Phil, locking his Escort’s tailgate before heading back for his pellets.

  Chris zapped his Renault and it obligingly unlocked itself. ‘Sometimes I wish people were like that,’ he said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Point something at them and they unlock themselves. Your Dr T, now: the medics say she’s fit enough to talk but, believe me, she’s keeping well and truly mum.’

  I slipped into the front passenger seat; the upholstery was hot.

  ‘Do you think it matters where she worked before? You could easily find out from her personnel files. Unless they’r
e covered by the Data Protection Act?’

  ‘Bound to be paper files. I’m just interested.’

  ‘Interested enough to find out if they had spates of computer theft too? And if the records of the suppliers have disappeared with her?’

  Chris started the engine and pressed the window-opening buttons before turning to me. ‘You know, Ms Rivers, you really do have the most disgustingly suspicious mind.’

  ‘I do, don’t I?’ I agreed affably.

  I put the petunias and lobelias in big earthenware pots. They’d grow up round fuchsias I’d had in my shed over the winter. There were a couple of prostrate fuchsias for hanging baskets – one for me, the other for Aggie – and I tucked in trailing carnations and the odd petunia and lobelia. None of these would stay out overnight for a couple of weeks yet, not until there was no risk of frost, but during the day they could bask on the patio.

  I was just going to pour myself a beer to celebrate a job well done when the phone rang. Chris?

  ‘I was saying to June, she’d want to come with me. And I know it’s Sunday, I said, but there’s nothing on the box, never is, of course.’

  ‘To see Melina’s parents?’ I guessed.

  ‘So I’ll be with you in ten minutes or so. You know my old car – I’ll just give a couple of bips on the horn, save me getting out.’

  The most appropriate outfit I could think of was my funeral suit, although it seemed rather excessive for a May evening. I needn’t have worried, however: Phil was wearing the male equivalent. He hardly spoke during the five minutes’ drive.

  GOD LOVES ROTTON PARK claimed a large notice, but He didn’t seem especially keen on the bit we were heading for – a little clutch of fifties houses squashed in on what had evidently been the site of a pair of Edwardian semis like their neighbours either side.

  Apart from spectacularly white net curtains, there was nothing to set Melina’s parents’ house apart from the others. And I still didn’t know their surname. I could feel the blush rising even as Phil rang the bell. With the sound of footsteps getting louder, now was scarcely the time to ask.

  The man who opened the door regarded us with the least emotion I’d ever seen. Perhaps it had all been washed out of him by his mourning. His black skin seemed grey in the evening light. His whole body drooped, though I guessed from the breadth of his shoulders and heavily muscled neck that he’d been a fine athlete. He made no response to Phil’s outstretched hand.

  Even Phil seemed disconcerted by the quality of his silence.

  ‘We’ve come from the college,’ I said. ‘To—’

  ‘“Blessed are they who mourn”,’ he said. ‘“For they shall be comforted.”’

  ‘I – I wanted to apologise,’ I said. There was no help in his face for me, so I continued: ‘I was one of the last to see her alive. She wanted to speak to me, to tell me something, but I was in too much of a hurry. I—’

  ‘“A thousand ages in His sight Are but an evening passed.”’ He put out his hand for the envelope Phil was holding.

  ‘I was wondering – please—’

  He turned to go in.

  ‘Please, I have to ask you. Do you know what she wanted to talk to me about? Did she mention anything to you?’

  He shook his head, as if he could hear little of what I was saying and cared less.

  ‘I feel so bad – all she wanted to do was talk.’

  ‘“Know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgement.”’ And he went in and shut the door.

  Before we could reach the front gate, the door opened again. An Afro-Caribbean woman, dressed in a navy suit as severe as mine, came out on the step. She raised her hand and then let it drop. ‘He is a good man,’ she said quietly, ‘but they have taken away his ewe lamb. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’ She too went in and closed the door.

  12

  I’m never a hundred per cent keen on Monday mornings, and as I strolled through the Martineau Centre’s car park I could think of a whole list of things I’d rather be doing than going into Muntz. For a start, I wasn’t looking foward to dealing with Sunshine and my office space. Then there was the interview with the principal. I hoped that Polly, the representative of the now derecognised union, would accompany me. She hadn’t phoned me over the weekend, and I’d still not managed to contact the other project team members, so I could see the possible weakness of my position. On the other hand, armed with a dollop of honest self-righteousness, I was ready to do battle.

  But not yet, it seemed.

  Geoge Muntz’s car park was seething with activity; there were more staff and students than I’d ever seen. My first thought was that there must be some sort of fire drill, or even another sudden death. But then I saw Polly and other NATFHE officials standing on the steps to the main entrance.

  I’d only been on strike a couple of times, and they were well in the past, but even I knew that these days you had to have ballots for strike action, and to give proper notice to the management of your intention. And I knew too that picketing was strictly controlled. Since most college lecturers are moderate souls, I couldn’t see this as some sort of illicit industrial action. Or, more accurately, inaction.

  I found a couple of women I knew by sight – it struck me how very few people I actually knew – and wandered over to them. Before I could say anything, however, a megaphone sputtered, and Polly called for our attention.

  ‘For those of you who’ve just arrived, let’s tell you what’s happening. Some of you remember signing our new contract at Easter. April the first – remember? Well, now we know who they were making fools of. All the engineering staff have now been given two weeks’ notice. That’s it. Kaput.’

  There was a roar of anger and disbelief. Polly let it ride for a second, then held up her hand for silence.

  ‘We can’t ask you to come out on strike. Not until we’ve gone through the proper channels. We’ve contacted Head Office and they’re sending someone down now. Bu—’

  At this point the elegant and apparently bored figure of Curtis appeared beside her. He spoke briefly to Polly, then turned on his heel.

  ‘Did you hear that, ladies and gentlemen? The law says if we’re only partially completing our work, the employers can stop our pay accordingly. And Mr Curtis has just told me that if any of us are late for class, this will be interpreted as partial performance and we will be sent home. My students are three weeks away from their exams; so are yours. So I suggest we go in now, and I’ll set up a proper ballot. We must be absolutely solid in this, or we’ll all go down together.’

  ‘Bugger the students!’ yelled a voice. ‘What about our future? What about our jobs? We want action now!’

  ‘Action now! Action now!’ yelled more voices. The chant rose and swelled.

  The megaphone again: ‘There’ll be a meeting at lunchtime. Please come! Twelve thirty?’

  ‘Action now!’ A man stepped forward, fist in the air. ‘We can’t let them get away with this!’ Tall, a shock of red hair turning rusty, he was a Viking ready to lead us against the foe. We applauded him, and then watched as the fingers of his clenched right hand uncurled, twitched and started to claw at his chest. He staggered back, his face contorted.

  ‘Jesus, they’ve bloody shot him!’ said a voice across the shocked silence.

  For a moment it was almost believable. But then – perhaps we all realised simultaneously – someone called for a doctor, for a first-aider, anyone: the Viking was stricken with a heart attack. That was the last I saw of him, as he went down, surrounded by his colleagues.

  ‘Get an ambulance! Get an ambulance!’ We could see someone pushing frantically at the college doors. Dear God, they couldn’t be locking us out, not now?

  I turned the other way: I could use my home phone. As I cut through the car park I ran, almost literally, into a police car. The face at the driver’s window was hostile, but when I gestured the window came down.

  ‘Can you call an ambulance? There’s a guy with a heart
attack over there.’

  For a moment I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me.

  The news came round on a memo that appeared in everyone’s pigeonhole. We were all to lose an hour’s pay for noncompliance with corporation regulations. Those whose timetables meant they didn’t have to be in till later should draw the attention of their head of department to this fact. There was no mention of Tom Hendry, the Viking.

  As an oddball attached to no particular department, I thought I might remind the principal of my timetable’s peculiarities when I saw him. I stopped off at Polly’s office to find her in a flat spin. She was crouching by her filing cabinet riffling through the bottom drawer with one hand, holding the phone handset in the other and making occasional staccato responses. I sat on the nearest chair with its embroidered elephant cushion and waited.

  At last she put down the phone, and, still crouching, turned to me. ‘Sorry I didn’t contact you on Friday,’ she began, ‘but I was off-site all day. Examiners’ training day in Leeds. My people come from Sheffield so I spent the weekend up there. And then I come back to this lot. Monday morning with a vengeance.’

  ‘This business with the engineers?’ I thought there was something else, too.

  ‘Stupid buggers! I did warn them. Our old contract gives us twelve months’ notice; this one two weeks’. I told them – and all they did was resign from the union. Idiots!’

  ‘So why are we supporting them?’ I asked, thinking I knew the answer.

  She stood up slowly, rubbing her knees as if they were painful. ‘“When they came for the Jews …” If they start with the engineers, and we don’t do anything, they can move on to other nonunion staff and then on to the older ones and then those with bad health records, and then …’ She shrugged. ‘Do you see?’

  Of course I did. ‘Have you heard about being derecognised yet?’

  ‘Can’t do it. Not legal. And I gather the governors’ meeting wasn’t quorate anyway. NATFHE’ll get their solicitors on to that. But—’ She stopped and bent to the drawer again.