I didn’t bother with supper, expecting that Chris and I would eat together. I just packed an overnight bag. I found some condoms left over from a previous relationship. They were perilously close to their end date, but I could no doubt trust Chris to be meticulous in such circumstances. The more I thought about it, the more I was afraid our bedding would have disastrous consequences for Chris. It’s one thing to love someone from afar, another to have sex with her and then have to return to the status quo. I flung down the condoms on the bed, and myself after them. ‘Shit and shit and shit!’ Let the listeners make of that what they might.
I was back at the table when Chris arrived two hours later. He marched straight past me when I opened the door. By the time I’d locked it again, he was standing at the table, studying my notes.
‘Well?’
‘Bastards!’ He threw the pad down so it slid across the table and down to the floor. ‘Bastards!’
I touched his arm and put my finger to my lips. He stalked round the table, snatched up the pad and headed for the front door. Picking up my bag, I followed more circumspectly, and set the alarm. I deadlocked the front door behind us.
He didn’t say anything as he drove through Edgbaston. He didn’t drive as well as usual, and once or twice I found myself squeaking as we approached a crossing too fast. He parked badly but it was his drive so I didn’t say anything. I merely reached for my things, struggled out – bracing my knees had brought the throbbing back – and watched while he locked up and set the alarm. He looked grey, with great blotches under his eyes. And he kept brushing the right side of his face as if to clear his sight.
He walked up the path like an old man: clearly it was touch and go whether he could get in before his migraine overtook him completely. I knew his drill, knew where to find the tablets, where he kept an ice pack in his freezer. I even found his wristbands, those that stimulate the acupressure points, and managed to slip them over his clenched fists. What I couldn’t deal with was the sight of Chris’s tears, so I drew his curtains and tiptoed from his bedroom.
There I was, at a loose end I was only half grateful for. I decided against music or TV – Chris’s bedroom was directly above his living room, and I wanted to do nothing to disturb him. I read through his newspapers: the Guardian and the Birmingham Post. News-shocked at last, I decided to make some tea and sat in his kitchen watching the kettle boil. When the phone rang I pounced.
It was someone from Action Aid asking him to sell raffle tickets. I wrote down their number, but didn’t, for a moment, put back the handset. There was someone I ought to phone about Muntz, wasn’t there? Someone unlikely. Aberlene!
I got through on the fourth ring, but only to her answering machine. It’s often like that, communicating with musicians, who live in a different section of the day from those of us with nine-to-five jobs. George and I used to joke that his answering machine and mine had more conversations than we did.
Apologising for the delay in returning her call, I told her about my bugs. I gave her Chris’s numbers, both his home and Rose Road, and asked her to phone one of us urgently about Muntz’s Bradford connection. And then I remembered that she’d got a week’s leave to prepare for her Wigmore Hall recital, and might well be staying with her parents in Henley for a bit of peace. But she’d no doubt call her machine from time to time, so I wished her luck anyway, and rang off.
It was about six when at last I heard Chris using the bathroom. I slung on my dressing gown and padded from the spare room to offer help. Now he’d be ready for my ministrations – vomiting was a signal that his migraine was more or less over.
He managed a pallid smile.
I smiled back. ‘China tea?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘And some dry toast for breakfast? When you’ve showered?’
‘Wonderful.’
Since it was a very long time since that lunchtime sandwich I was ready for rather more. There didn’t seem to be much in his fridge or store cupboard – another sign he’d been working overlong hours. But even as I set out plates and cutlery I remembered I’d better dress first.
Thoroughly decent in jeans and sweatshirt, I returned to my search for food. His muesli looked uncompromisingly healthy, and would be more so if I laced it with fat-free milk. On the other hand, the toast smelled good, so I settled for some expensive-looking marmalade, the sort that comes in small jars with large price tags.
‘Sit,’ I said, as Chris appeared. ‘No excuses. No eating on the hoof.’
‘OK.’
I looked at him sharply: such docility was unnatural. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Can’t you take a sickie?’
He grimaced. ‘Got to be all right, haven’t I?’
I poured him a mug of tea and passed it to him without speaking.
‘Until this lot’s sorted out, I’ve just got to be.’
There was plenty of time for him to stop off at Rose Road before taking me in to work; I followed him in, responding to friendly faces. He snatched a fax from his desk.
‘Bugger!’ He thrust the offending paper at me, so I could read it myself.
Much of it was incomprehensible, the jargon of the medical world, but I managed to work out one thing. ‘So there’s no evidence of foul play?’
‘Why should a man die at a computer? And see, no evidence of a heart attack.’ He pointed at some more polysyllabic phrases.
‘Am I being stupid? How can someone simply die without rhyme or reason?’
‘They don’t. Here’s the rest of the fax. Something about a red patch on his scalp – see? And changes in the brain tissue. They’re asking someone else to have a look. But those upstairs won’t like this. I can’t justify a full-scale murder inquiry if there’s no hard evidence. All this business of cost centres and budgets: damn it all, Sophie, stopping crime isn’t a business. I’m not selling so many pounds of apples here! It’s human lives we’re talking about.’
I nodded. He’d heard much the same speech from me about education many times since they started the cuts.
‘There’s got to be something, hasn’t there?’ he said. ‘This report confirms Blake’s sexual activity, so when the forensic-science team start on that computer we should be able to find out what was so exciting. But not exciting enough to give him heart failure. I’m sorry: I’m going round in circles.’
‘You’re not. I tried to work things out myself yesterday.’
‘All those notes of yours – I meant to—’
‘They don’t make sense to me yet. But if you looked at them – you and Ian, the more heads the better – maybe you could see what I can’t.’ I hoped, of course, he’d reciprocate, but I could never tell with Chris.
He responded with an old-fashioned look. ‘What is it they say in your neck of the woods? I’m not as green as I am cabbage-looking? OK, Sophie, we’ll talk later, the three of us. I’m seeing the pathologist first.’
And the body. I wouldn’t mention that. ‘Maybe four? How about inviting Dave Clarke along? Surely you and Ian together could protect me from his ravening hands? It’s just that there are things going on that I think may be more in his line of business than in yours.’
He looked doubtful, then brightened. ‘Why not? Them upstairs would like it if we could tap into another cost centre. We’ll recruit him to the incident-room team. Hint he’ll see more of you if he comes.’
I stuck out my tongue.
We were just about to set off for Muntz when his phone rang; he’d be able to sell his idea to them upstairs earlier than he’d expected. I’d have happily walked in to college – I had plenty of time and it was a cool, clear morning – but Chris summoned Ian to offer me a lift and I didn’t want to waste any of his limited energy by arguing.
‘Looks bloody awful, doesn’t he?’ Ian said, as he let me into his car.
‘I’m not surprised. He didn’t finish his migraine till about six this morning. I wanted him to take a sickie, but he wouldn’t hear of it.’
&nbs
p; ‘Do as I say never works as well as do as I do,’ Ian observed, checking his mirror and pulling out. And stalling; obviously he’d just realised the implication of what I’d said.
‘I got scared last night,’ I said as coolly as I could. What I wanted to do was laugh at the expression on the poor man’s face. There was nothing he’d like better than to see Chris marry me, but in his book marriage preceded bedding, not vice versa. ‘I’m very concerned for him,’ I added.
‘Blame Sheehy,’ he said.
‘He’s still worrying about what’ll happen to him?’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
I nodded. ‘And if I were a fixture at Muntz I’d be worrying harder.’
On impulse I decided to walk round the college buildings before I went in, following the route of the previous day. No one had got round to taping off the border where I was sure a ladder had rested. I wanted to phone Chris and remark on the fact, but I couldn’t, not until I’d checked I was bug-free. And I hadn’t phoned Simon to tell him about the electronics graveyard in the skip. I had another peer inside. If I was going to lure him over, I’d better have some idea of what there was. He wouldn’t want retired soldering irons, or an enormous convector heater just like one my gran used to have. Nor valves, surely. Except that wasn’t a valve. It was like the bit that was wrong on his microwave. The magnetron, that was it.
‘Watch yourself, love!’
How I’d missed the approach of a skip truck, God alone knew. I moved smartly. And then thought again. I ran round to the cab. The knee gave just as I got level with his door, so I had to lean heavily for a moment. The driver scrambled down.
‘You OK, chick?’ He peered earnestly at me. He was about thirty, blue-eyed and fresh-faced.
‘Just my knee.’ I rubbed it resentfully. How could I manage the rest of my life if it was going to do this every time I asked it for a bit of effort?
‘Got one of them, have you? Spot of the Gazzas? Ligament trouble?’
I shook my head. ‘Not exactly. But I can quite understand why he cried.’
‘Cried meself, love, when I did mine. Finished me foot-balling days, I can tell you.’
We grinned at each other. I started to limp away. Then I turned back to him.
‘You couldn’t do me the most enormous favour, could you?’ I invented a little to make my request more plausible. ‘Only my microwave’s in the same state as my knee, and I can see a magnetron in there might just do.’
He walked back with me, his hand cupped ready to support my elbow should I need help.
‘There – can you see? Only I’m too short to reach in there.’
‘Bet you have problems with chest freezers, too,’ he said. I didn’t think a sexist pun was intended, so I grinned obligingly. ‘Hang on, that’ll be all dirty. Got some rags in the cab.’ He jogged back unevenly, and then returned, flourishing what had once been a tea towel celebrating Australia’s wildlife. He looked at his own hands, still clean before what would no doubt be a filthy day, and grimaced. ‘This muck’s giving me dermatitis too,’ he said. ‘But there aren’t that many jobs for ex-footballers with delicate hands. Not round here.’ He arranged the cloth in a rough mitt and leaned over into the skip. ‘There!’
I took both cloth and magnetron from him, and finished wrapping it before I shoved it into my bag. No point in advertising my acquisition.
‘Thank you.’ And then I added, ‘Not many people would have been this kind.’
He considered the matter quite seriously for a moment. ‘I s’pose not. There’s a lot in this world as would as soon spit in your eye as look at you. Best be on me way now, though, love.’
I waited while he reversed his truck quickly and accurately, and winched up the skip. And then I waved him out of sight. Even if he was only a chance visitor, it was nice to meet someone at Muntz who seemed to be on the side of the angels.
24
Tuesday morning’s e-mail told me that my printing awaited collection. This was a posh way of saying that I should fetch from the print room a photocopied set of hand-outs on Hamlet for my A-level students. Back at William Murdock any printing arrived in your pigeonhole, so I rather resented having to go to the bowels of the college, especially as I wasn’t happy about prowling round on my own, however much I might have hated having a police escort. Since my route took me down the main staircase, there were a number of people around, but the emptiness that had so impressed the constable was again noticeable. I caught a glimpse of Sunshine, but it was clear that neither of us wanted to engage in conversation. He headed off towards the engineering wing, which made his previous choice of my room for a new pad even more puzzling.
The print room had no obvious system for retrieving your material. As you entered, on your right there was a long table covered with piles of paper. You searched through this until you found yours. If you were less fortunate, your stuff might be on the floor underneath. More important – that is, management – printing was on another long table to the left. There was a ledger for you to sign when at last you found what you wanted. If you wished to complain that the set-up was tediously inefficient, you risked incurring the wrath of Mr Heaven, whose domain this was. His acolytes were a pair of lads from Cradley Heath built like pit-bull terriers.
I nearly fell over Polly, scavenging under the management table.
‘Hi! Everything OK?’ I asked quietly.
Flushed from the effort, she pulled out a pile of photocopies about fifteen inches thick. ‘Been waiting for these since last half-term!’ she gasped.
I held out my hands. ‘Don’t try and lift them all at once. Let me help. There! Hey, did you mean that – about waiting all those weeks?’
She passed me the rest and got up, dusting her knees. ‘Yes.’
‘Why not complain?’
‘And know that the next batch I sent down would mysteriously disappear? And the next come back printed mirror-image? I’m a tough old bird, Sophie, but there are some things even I’d hesitate to risk. Thanks,’ she said, taking the pile from me. ‘Why not join me for an orange juice at break?’
‘Great!’ I smiled her on her way. That was the first time anyone here had ever made any real overture. All the more unfortunate, then, that I should be forced to snub her. But I was sure she’d forgive me when eventually I could explain.
There was something Chris had to know. As I agonised about phones, it came to me that the simplest thing to do was get my bike and simply deliver my message in person. I’d got to the far end of Wentworth Road when a familiar car appeared. I flagged him down.
‘What’s all this?’ Chris gestured to my bike.
‘Needs must when the devil drives and you haven’t a safe phone. I’m due in class in forty minutes, so I can’t hang about.’
Neither could he. The drivers stuck behind us both were getting vociferous.
‘OK. Back to my office!’
I grinned and headed off down the hill, dodging round a very sick car on a tow truck. Chris would have to take a more circuitous route, but probably arrive before me, if I knew that glint in his eye. To my great satisfaction, however, I’d already chained up my cycle and was removing the saddle when he pulled up alongside me.
‘Don’t trust anyone, do you?’ he observed.
‘Do you? Got your percolator back yet, by the way?’
‘It returned yesterday evening. Dirty. Even now it waits your pleasure.’ To my surprise he gave a courtly bow.
To encourage him in his frivolity, I responded in kind. Curtsying was never meant to be easy, but I’m sure that my short skirt made it trickier. The knee locked as I tried to return to the vertical, and he had to give me his hand.
‘Shoot,’ he said, two minutes later, as he filled the percolator – decaff, I noticed – and switched on.
I dumped myself on his visitor’s chair and my bag on his desk. ‘I found something you ought to read.’ I burrowed in my bag for the memo I’d removed from the print room.
He fished for those
wretched spectacles, shoved them on and started to read.
George Muntz College of Further Education
FROM: Mr D. M. Blake, Chief Executive and Principal
TO: All teaching personnel
RE: COLLEGE REORGANISATION
With effect from 1 June, all teaching posts will be reviewed and new job descriptions drawn up. Staff will be required to apply for each post as it arises. The posts will be subject to the George Muntz Contract, copies of which are available from the Cheif Executives Personnal Assistant.
He whistled. ‘Impressive interpersonal skills. And spelling.’ Then he added, ‘So we now have approximately a hundred and fifty lecturers who are suspects for what may or may not be an unlawful killing. When was this released? Why haven’t I seen it till now?’ His voice was becoming distinctly official. I suppose it went with those specs.
‘Perhaps you weren’t shown it till now because I didn’t liberate it till about ten minutes ago.’ I told him the circumstances. ‘Who says crime doesn’t pay?’
‘At least you didn’t do a repeat of last summer’s breaking and entering,’ he said gloomily. ‘It took a lot of explaining away, that did.’ But he poured me a coffee and passed me the sugar amicably enough.
‘Me? Break and enter? Chief inspector, sir, I found the sheet of paper attached to my own photocopying. I must have picked it up by mistake when I put my pile of papers down to help Polly to her feet,’ I said in a robot voice, staring at the far wall. ‘And what you said about unlawful killing – any news yet?’
‘They’ve got this expert neurosurgeon working on it. I’m seeing him later. He said he thought there were signs of a very high fever—’
‘Meningitis or something?’ I was prepared to be disappointed.
He shook his head. ‘No. There’s that business about no sign of infection in the blood. No antibodies or whatever. Why didn’t you do a medical degree so you could translate all this guff?’
‘Because you’d have nailed me as a suspect years ago. And you must know some long words. Getting a PhD in astrophysics argues more than your average vocabulary. But in any case –’ I started to read over his shoulder – ‘I wouldn’t call those long words. What’s this? “From the consistency of blancmange to the consistency of an omelette”? Jesus! “In a cone roughly four centimetres at the base on the outside of the skull.” What in hell’s caused that?’
Dying on Principle Page 20