An Academic Death

by J M Gregson

  Clare watched the girl striding resolutely away down the corridor, regretting already that she had ever involved her like this. She remembered now why this day, 29 June, had rung a bell in her memory that morning. It was the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. In her childhood, it had been a Holiday of Obligation at her Catholic school, and they had all looked forward to it fervently as a glorious respite from lessons, a day spent in the long summer warmth. Memory said those days were always sunny.

  Now all the twenty-ninth meant to her was that it was eighteen days since the murder of Matt Upson. And still no one had come to arrest her. She had surely made herself a little safer this morning.

  *

  The hospital was cool, muted, efficient. Everyone seemed to know what they were about. Except the patients. This must be how police stations seemed, thought John Lambert, to those who weren’t familiar with their myriad deficiencies, their constant stumblings towards effectiveness.

  The ECG operator ran quickly through a simplified version of how the machine worked — too quickly for a bewildered detective superintendent to follow him. Lambert stared stupidly at the wires as they were attached to his chest, obeyed the simple instructions he was given with the concentrated, dutiful application of a child. He stared at the ceiling of the bleak, aseptic room and was pleased to note a few cracks in the plaster at the top of the wall. It was just a room, after all, like other rooms in other places.

  He had woken just after midnight with that sharp pain again, right beneath the place where the man now set one of the contacts. He had cried out in his sleep with the suddenness of the stabbing, waking Christine. She had made him promise that he would give all the details, without minimising the severity of the pain, when he was asked about it by the medicos this morning.

  He went over the details of how he would phrase it for them in his head, several times, while the contacts were attached to different places and the machine whirred behind him. In the end, he was not given the chance to relay any new details. The ECG operator stripped the clips swiftly away from his chest and back and said simply, ‘That’s it, then, Mr Lambert. We shall be in contact with your GP with the results and any comments within a few days.’

  Lambert thanked him dutifully. He was out of the ECG unit before he fully comprehended what was happening. The pain gave him a sharp stab as he stooped to unlock his car, like a familiar companion reminding him that it was still there.

  *

  Liz Upson stood for a moment on the doorstep of her house, looking into the grey, observant eyes of Superintendent John Lambert.

  She did not appear to be disconcerted by this visit. All she said was, ‘I’m glad you came whilst the children were at school.’ Then she lowered her eyes the few inches that were necessary for them to take in an inscrutable Bert Hook and said, ‘I suppose you’d better come in.’

  They sat down in the neat, clean sitting room, where the only evidence of children was a CD of the latest pop group on top of the hi-fi column in the corner. There were studio photographs of both the children at about the age of five, staring with wide-eyed childish innocence at some object held above the camera. There was no picture of the dead Matthew Upson, no other trace of the husband and father who had once lived a large part of his life in this room.

  Liz Upson moved characteristically on to the attack before they could question her. ‘I want to organise Matt’s funeral,’ she said. ‘Get it over and out of the way. It’s upsetting for the children, waiting like this. And it must be agony for old Mrs Upson. God knows, I’ve no reason to be kind to the old bat, but she is his mother, and she must be very upset.’

  ‘I heard you’d been enquiring at the station,’ said Lambert calmly. ‘I think they explained the situation to you there. There’s no way that the body can be released for interment until we have concluded our enquiries. It’s upsetting to relatives, I know, but this is the normal situation in a murder case.’

  ‘It’s a bloody nuisance. I don’t mind for myself, but it’s upsetting for the children and anyone else who might want to mourn. We can’t begin to get on with the rest of our lives until he’s burned and out of our minds.’

  Lambert was sure the callousness of the last phrases was deliberate, an act of bravado to challenge their conventional views of how a wife should be reacting. Well, he wouldn’t try to shield her feelings, then. ‘You can see the point of the system, I’m sure. Cremation is very final, disposing of any evidence which may still lie within the body. It doesn’t leave even the option of exhumation, which is still possible after a burial. And I’m sure you wouldn’t want us to destroy anything which might help us to convict the person who killed your husband.’

  There was a hint of irony in his tone, and she picked it up. ‘You know my feelings about Matt, Superintendent. So does Sergeant Hook. I’m not pretending I plan any grieving myself. I just want to close the chapter. The whole book, in fact.’ She smiled her satisfaction in the metaphor.

  Lambert wondered what new book she planned to open. He could not think that this attractive, fair-haired, intelligent woman planned to remain celibate for very long. For that matter, she might have been conducting an affair or affairs whilst her husband was still alive: she had made no secret of the fact that she regarded her marriage as over. But they had not been able to turn up any close associations, male or female, by discreet CID enquiries. Liz Upson was either without serious entanglements or very careful.

  Lambert said, ‘We came here about another matter.’

  ‘I hope it won’t take long: I’m working this afternoon. I have to change and be out of the house in less than an hour.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you a few questions about the Beretta pistol possessed by your husband. The murder weapon, it now appears.’

  She gazed back at him, unperturbed. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Your husband did not hold a firearm licence for the pistol.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m not surprised. He was never the best organised of men, as you’ll perhaps have discovered for yourselves by now. What do you propose to do about it? Charge him posthumously? Or summons the grieving widow? I can’t think you’d get a very sympathetic hearing!’

  Lambert refused to let her rattle him. ‘Do you know how long Matthew had been in possession of the weapon?’

  ‘No. I didn’t take any interest in such things. I’m glad it’s out of the house for good now, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘It was manufactured in the early eighties. Had he held the weapon since that time?’

  Liz Upson considered the matter. Or gave a very good impression of considering it — neither of the watchful, experienced men could be sure which, with this woman. ‘He hadn’t had it very long. But I couldn’t tell you how long. He didn’t inform me when he got it, and I’ve told you before that I’d ceased to take any interest in his actions. He mentioned it one day, that’s all, and I remember telling him that I didn’t want him showing it off to the children.’

  ‘Had he had it ten years? Five years? Two years?’

  ‘Certainly less than five years. Maybe less than two. Yes, I’d say he’d held that pistol for two years or something very near that.’

  For one who had professed such ignorance, she seemed to be able to place the time of the acquisition of the weapon fairly accurately, in her offhand, throwaway style of delivery. And this timing made sense. Matthew Upson had been making serious money from drugs in the last two years, had without doubt been involved with some very dubious people. He would have had little difficulty acquiring a firearm in such circles, and he might well have felt the need to possess one as some form of insurance. It was ironic that the weapon he had perhaps acquired for personal protection should have been the instrument of his death.

  Liz Upson watched impassively as Hook recorded the details in his large, clear hand. Lambert said, ‘There’s another matter we need to clear up. Your husband’s car.’

  She flicked her glance from Hook’s notebook to Lambert’s lined face. ‘It’s i
n the garage. Your people have already examined it in considerable detail. But help yourself, if you think it might help.’ There was a contemptuous assumption in her tone that it would be a waste of time.

  ‘That won’t be necessary. It’s the use of the car, rather than the vehicle itself, which is our concern. Would you tell us how your husband got to work on the day when he disappeared, please?’

  A flicker of something on that smoothly attractive face: just possibly fear, but more likely merely irritation. ‘I’ve told your officers this already. In detail.’

  ‘Yes. Tell us again, please.’ Lambert was as imperturbable as she was. He could keep this up indefinitely, if he thought it would help him. It was a habit of senior CID officers to make people repeat accounts of events they had already given: it was surprising how often people told things differently, a few days later. Sometimes the discrepancies were no more than the result of imperfect recollection; just occasionally, they had real significance, exposing crucial lies.

  Liz Upson’s account had no such interesting variations. ‘Matt’s car was in for service on the day he disappeared. I took him to work in my car. I can give you the service bill if you like, dated and receipted.’ She allowed herself a little smile of derision.

  ‘That won’t be necessary. The story has already been checked with the garage, who confirm it. They told us also that the car was collected by you, not Mr Upson, at the end of the day.’

  She sighed. ‘That is correct. That is the arrangement we had made. It wasn’t convenient for me, but I was used to Matt being a damned nuisance. He said he didn’t know when he would get home, so a friend of mine whose children attend the same school ran me down to the garage and I collected it. It’s been sitting in the garage ever since.’

  ‘Did your husband say why he thought he might be detained in the university on that day?’

  She sighed, with the air of one whose patience was wearing thin. ‘He didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask him. I thought I’d made it abundantly clear at our previous meetings that I’d long since ceased to care what that arsehole was doing.’ She threw in the obscenity with due emphasis, and looked automatically at Bert Hook, to whom she had repeatedly used the epithet at their first meeting. He gave her the ghost of a smile and a tiny nod of confirmation.

  ‘So you don’t know how he proposed to get home from the university on that Friday?’

  ‘Superintendent, I don’t even know if he proposed to come home that day. I think he said he’d get a lift from one of his colleagues, but whether that was true or one of his habitual lies I couldn’t tell you. You still don’t seem to understand that we lived separate lives, for ninety per cent of the time. Our only common interest was the children.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t have any idea which particular colleague he might have been hoping would give him a lift? You must see that it’s important; we’re talking about his final hours in this world. It now seems likely that Matthew was driven to the Malverns by the same person who killed him there shortly afterwards.’

  She looked at him steadily. ‘I do see that it’s important. I’d help you, if I could. I might not be grieving for Matt, but I’d like to see whoever killed him brought to justice. Unfortunately, I can’t help you. I’ve no idea whom Matt was hoping to use as his chauffeur on that Friday. I don’t know the people he worked with; I’ve never even met the majority of them.’

  Lambert noticed that she hadn’t mentioned Clare Booth as a possibility. She had denied all knowledge of her husband’s lovers at their first meeting, but he was sure now that she must have known about the existence of the prolonged affair between her husband and his academic colleague. It seemed almost unnaturally virtuous in her not to be tempted by the chance to throw in a bitchy reference to her husband’s lover. But perhaps she remembered her earlier denial of such knowledge: she was a careful woman this, a sturdy opponent. Or perhaps she really was as indifferent to her husband’s actions as she had maintained that she was through all their meetings.

  He nodded to Hook and they stood up. ‘That’s all. But please go on thinking about your husband’s last day at the university. If you come up with anyone you think he might have been hoping would give him a lift, or indeed anyone he might have been planning to meet, please get in touch with us immediately.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll certainly think about it. But don’t hold your breath. I think if I was going to come up with anything useful, it would almost certainly have occurred to me by now.’

  At least she had ended on a conciliatory note, thought Lambert as they went back to the police Mondeo. On the whole, he decided, it was easier to deal with widows who were racked by tears, struggling to come to terms with their loss, than the composed, sometimes almost scornful, Liz Upson.

  The lady in question watched them as they climbed a little stiffly into the pool car and drove away. She stood still as a statue beside the window of her house until a minute after the vehicle had disappeared round the corner of her quiet residential road.

  Then she went back into the kitchen and dialled a familiar number.

  ‘Can you talk? … The police have just been here again… No, the top brass, that Superintendent Lambert and his sidekick… I didn’t — just went over old ground that I’d covered before… No, it’s my belief they’re not much nearer. They’re fishing around trying to find out who Matt met in the university on the day of his death, who was going to give him a lift home in the afternoon… Of course I didn’t… See you soon — let’s make it soon, for God’s sake! … Yes, all right.’

  She put the phone down and stared at it for a moment before she went back to her chores. Before she went upstairs to get dressed for an afternoon at work, she permitted herself a rare, secret smile.

  Fifteen

  The cafeteria, which was normally crowded at one o’clock, was almost empty today. Many students had finished their exams. Those who hadn’t had either run out of money at this late stage of the academic year or were studying at home. The place was about one-tenth full and Sharon Webster was able to enjoy a table to herself.

  She propped an open book against a glass of water, but found she could not settle to reading. The excitement of the morning and of Clare Booth’s request for assistance were still affecting her too much for that. She watched the good-looking man with a light lunch on his tray pass in front of the counter and exchange a small joke with the cashier as he paid. She was vaguely conscious of seeing him about the site over the last few days. He looked quite personable; he was a little older than her — perhaps a Ph.D. or some other kind of postgraduate student.

  She was surprised when he came over and sat at her table, giving her a bright smile of recognition as he did so, but saying nothing. He ate busily for a couple of minutes. Sharon, who was trying not to watch him, had rarely seen plaice, chips and peas disappear so rapidly. She became aware of something quite odd: he had bought not one but two cups of coffee to accompany his meal. She was surprised she had not noticed it when he unloaded the contents of his tray on to the table, but she had been busy ignoring his arrival at the time.

  Now, almost in the instant she became aware of the two steaming cups, the puzzle was explained. The man gave her that boyish grin again and slid one of the cups towards her. ‘Noticed you only had a glass of water,’ he said. ‘Thought you might join me for coffee.’

  It was the oddest attempt at a pick-up she had met in an admittedly sheltered life. She said coldly, ‘I didn’t buy one because I didn’t want one.’ Then, because the severe put-down was not in her nature, she added, ‘Thanks all the same.’

  ‘Fair enough!’ said the man. But he didn’t attempt to take the coffee back. He made short work of a custard tart, licked the ends of his fingers, wiped them on his paper serviette, and said, ‘Want anything important, did she, Ms Booth?’

  Sharon stared at him, feeling her stomach turn suddenly queasy. ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business, do you?’

  ‘Yes, I do, surprisingly enough
. That’s exactly what it is, Sharon, my business.’ He glanced swiftly round at the scattered customers of the cafeteria, saw that no one was taking any interest in this couple on the periphery, and pushed a card in a small plastic folder under her eyes. It had a photograph of him, staring seriously into the lens, looking even younger than he did here. It told her that he was Detective Constable Mark Whitwell.

  Sharon stared first at the card, then back into the friendly face above it. All she could think of to say was, ‘How do you know my name? How do you know about Clare?’

  ‘The first is easy. I’ve been on the site for the last few days, conducting enquiries into a serious crime and keeping my ears open. The first thing I collected was the list of students of a man who was brutally murdered earlier this month.’

  ‘Matt Upson.’

  ‘Precisely. So I knew about you, as well as about thirty other students. You’re one of the three who are actually around today, I believe. But I commend your concentration on your revision: you didn’t even know that I was working at the same table as you in the library this morning, did you? Hence I was well aware that Clare Booth had called you away for a private word. Which, knowing that Ms Booth had enjoyed what the Sunday papers call a close relationship with the murder victim, made me very curious. Sorry about that, but you do see that it’s my job, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so. But I don’t like —’

  ‘So you’ll see that I need to know exactly what it was that Ms Booth wanted to talk about so privately.’

  ‘No way. I can’t break a confidence, whoever you are.’ But even as she tried to be firm, she knew that she was not going to prevail. It was a situation she had never met before, and one in which this smiling, fresh-faced young man seemed to be perfectly at ease.