The Cruellest Month

by Hazel Holt

  Chapter Five

  The next day was wet and horrible, not a bit like spring. The rain came in gusts, blown in your face by a cold, vicious wind. I abandoned all hopes of keeping my umbrella up, put my head down and ploughed miser-ably across the Parks, simply to take a short cut. The sunshine and blue skies of yesterday seemed part of another existence. The wet rope round the cricket pitch sagged depressingly and rain bounced off the benches. The wicket was covered, but there would obviously be no play today.

  As I left my damp belongings with George at the desk I asked idly, ‘Were you on duty the day that Miss Richmond died?’

  ‘Indeed I was, Mrs Malory, and a fine old carry-on it was, too. The police were very good, tried their best not to disturb things, but some of our readers were very upset because, of course, they closed the Library. One lady – all the way from California, she was, and only had that one day in Oxford to check something she said – she was very put out. And Dr Lassiter, too, she said she wanted to verify something for an exhibition the following day. And then poor Mr Stirling – white as a sheet – a terrible thing to happen to him. Such a pleasant young man, very conversable and absolutely devoted to Bodley – I can tell you, he felt it very deeply, such a thing happening in his section. He is so keen on safety – fire regulations and such – not everyone is so conscientious, I may say – and so concerned for his staff. They were very distressed too – well you can imagine – very nice girls. Miss Turner, especially – she was so upset she didn’t come in the next day, so you can tell. Oh yes, Miss Richmond caused a great deal of trouble one way and another.’

  Miss Turner would be Pamela. I couldn’t imagine the bouncy Felicity being that upset.

  ‘How wretched for you all.’

  ‘Of course, it could have been worse. Term hadn’t begun so

  there weren’t as many readers as there might have been…’

  He broke off as an impatient woman behind me thrust a Harrods shopping bag crammed with books and a very wet umbrella on to the counter.

  ‘I’d better get on,’ I said and moved to hang up my wet coat on one of the pegs in the passage beyond.

  Chester Howard wasn’t in Room 45 and I was aware of a distinct feeling of disappointment. Tony and Felicity weren’t there either so I went up to Pamela who was sorting through some papers.

  ‘Hello. You must be Pamela. I’m Sheila Malory, Tony’s godmother.’

  She was wearing the same grey skirt but with a red polo-neck sweater. Whether it was the bright colour near her face I don’t know, but she certainly looked much less pale and wan than she had done the day before, almost cheerful, in fact. She smiled shyly and said, ‘Yes, I know, Tony’s told me about you. He’s got a meeting this morning.’

  She had a pleasant voice and I decided that I liked her. She handed me the box of documents I was working on and I became so absorbed in them that thoughts of anything else went right out of my head.

  It was still raining quite hard when I went out to lunch, so I decided that I’d just nip across the road to the Kings Arms. The usual lunchtime squash hadn’t quite developed, so that I was able to find a seat at a minuscule table with two chairs jammed up against it in a corner. I carefully put down my glass of white wine and regarded the contents of my plate with some misgiving. It sounds silly, but ‘having lunch out’ (I have to put it in inverted commas) is still a treat to me, as it is, I am sure, to most women who usually cook for themselves, and yet I am almost invariably disappointed. Not just in pubs. Even in quite grand restaurants I somehow find that what I have chosen isn’t really what I want and the food that other people have on their plates always looks more appealing than mine. Pub food, though, is particularly hazardous in this respect, especially where an attempt has been made to provide ‘interesting’ or ‘wholefood’ menus. I know enough now to avoid the soggy quiche with its leaden wholemeal pastry or the vegetable lasagne drenched in tomato purée – every-thing that Michael sums up scornfully as ‘carrot-cake food’. But perhaps I had gone too far the other way today with an enormous sausage enshrouded in some brittle-looking batter pudding and weighted down with a mound of pale chips. ‘Toad’n’chips?’ the girl behind the counter had asked and, thinking that there might be no nice filling chilli this evening, I had agreed.

  Experimentally I ate a chip and decided that I was quite hungry after all. A voice behind me said, ‘Is this place taken?’

  I turned round and saw Chester Howard.

  ‘No, do sit down. If you can, that is.’

  He edged himself into the chair with some difficulty.

  ‘I think,’ I said, ‘that if you sit sort of sideways with your legs not under the table you might manage it.’

  ‘Yes, you are right. These little tables are not meant for the likes of me.’

  ‘Not for the likes of anyone, really, except an anorexic dwarf.’

  He had sensibly chosen to eat a couple of sandwiches, which looked much more appetising than my now congealing sausage. I dug my fork into the batter which shattered into a thousand pieces and shot off the table.

  ‘Oh dear – I think I’d better abandon the hole and just eat the toad.’

  ‘The what!’

  I explained about toad in the hole.

  ‘Your sausages are one of my real reasons for coming to England so often. And marmalade. And scones. Though not necessarily together.’

  We chatted about food and the weather and I found him very easy and pleasant to talk to.

  ‘I gather that you come over here quite often?’

  ‘I try to come at least once a year – I’ve been lucky with Leverhulme fellowships and suchlike – and now that I’m sort of retired I plan to spend more time in travelling anyway.’

  ‘What about your family?’

  ‘Sadly, I don’t have a family any more. Just an apartment in Boston and a rather eccentric cat, at present staying with friends – his rather than mine, actually.’

  ‘I know what you mean. They can be very demanding.’

  Having finished most of the sausage, I pushed the remaining chips to the side of my plate and laid down my knife and fork.

  ‘I believe we have a common friend,’ I said. ‘Arthur Fitzgerald.’

  ‘Fitz? You’re a friend of Fitz? Why that’s marvellous!’

  ‘I’ve known him for years – ever since I was up at Oxford – but I didn’t know that he was back in England until yesterday. To be honest I can’t quite imagine him in America. Though they do say that Boston is very like England.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Sure. They do say that – you should have heard Fitz on the subject. “The only things that Boston and England have in common”,’ his voice took on an approximation of Fitz’s drawl, ‘“is the plainness of the women, the inedibility of the food and a curious preoccupation with tea.”’

  ‘Oh dear. That does sound like Fitz.’

  ‘They loved him, though, and the more he insulted them the better they liked it. However.’ his voice became serious, ‘he is most able. His work on Browning is really seminal.’

  ‘Oh yes, I suppose it is. I gather your present fields overlap in places.’

  ‘Oh, he’s told you about my study on Benson. Yes, a little, but of course his will be the more important work.’

  ‘He seemed to regard it as almost frivolous,’ I replied laughing.

  ‘As you said, that sounds like Fitz. Do you know Benson’s work?’

  ‘I love the Lucia books – you’re very lucky to have such a good excuse to go to Rye. It really is an enchanting place.’

  ‘I have visited it in the past, of course, and fell under its spell, but I am glad to say that I will need to spend quite a lot of time there this trip. Meanwhile I’m enjoying working in the Bodleian very much. It’s a very civilised atmosphere, don’t you find? And they are so efficient and helpful in Room 45.’

  ‘The young man there – Tony Stirling – is my godson, so I’m prejudiced, of course, but, yes, you are right. I love the B
odleian – it reminds me of my youth.’

  ‘How fortunate you are to want to be reminded – I try not to think of mine.’

  He levered himself to his feet.

  ‘I am going to have the other half of this strange flat English beer. Will you have another glass of wine?’

  ‘My son would be appalled to hear you call it that – that, I must tell you, is Real Ale. And no, I don’t think I’d better have any more wine else I’ll fall asleep over my notes this afternoon. I’d love an orange juice though.’

  He fought his way through a scrum of students and returned with two glasses.

  ‘Tell me about your family,’ he said. ‘You say you have a son?’

  ‘Yes, he’s in his last year here.’

  ‘Reading English?’

  ‘No, History, like his father.’

  ‘Your husband is an historian then?’

  ‘No. He is – he was a solicitor. He died just over two years ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m over it now, I suppose – or as much as one ever does get over losing someone one cares for very much. And I’ve got Michael.’

  ‘What is he going to do when he graduates?’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to know – it’s a bit worrying. I think he might stay on and do research if his results are good enough. I gather his tutor is quite hopeful.’

  I thought of Hardwick and his grubby trainers and sighed.

  ‘The academic world is changing so quickly, I don’t really know if that’s what I want him to do.’

  ‘Worse in the States. Tenure. All those dreadful books pouring from the more obscure university presses simply because you don’t get tenure if you don’t publish some-thing! Perhaps Pope was right.’

  ‘Pope?’

  ‘Didn’t he say to an aspiring poet: “Young man, if your father has a trade, follow it!”’

  ‘Poor young man! But in Michael’s case it mightn’t be a bad idea. He’d make a good solicitor.’

  ‘I’d like to meet him. Perhaps you’d both have a meal with me one evening.’

  ‘We’d like that.’

  ‘Where are you staying in Oxford?’

  I explained about Betty.

  ‘How fortunate you are. I am very fond of the country round Woodstock, and it’s very handy for you to have a godson in the Bodleian.’

  ‘Yes indeed. Though poor Tony – I don’t know if you heard – there was a dreadful accident there last month and one of the staff was killed. Were you in Oxford then?’ ‘Yes, I was, though I was not in the Bodleian at the time – I had gone up to London that day with a friend – but I heard about it when I went in the following week. Shelves collapsed, I gather, on some unfortunate woman.’

  ‘Something of the sort, though I think it was more complicated than that.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, not complicated exactly, a large book fell on her head as well. Anyway, it was Tony who discovered her. It upset him very much…’ ‘A dreadful thing to have happened.’ ‘Yes. Not what one expects in the Bodleian. Poor George – do you know George? He sits in that little cubby-hole and takes your bags and checks your reader’s card – he feels it very much. “What in our house!” – that sort of thing. Which reminds me,’ I looked at my watch, ‘I must get back.’

  We eased our way through a group of young people who were engaged in a noisy argument about the relative merits of Bizet and Meyerbeer and emerged thankfully into the fresh air. It was still raining.

  Chester Howard put up his umbrella and politely escorted me across the road to the door of the Bodleian.

  ‘I have to go to Blackwell’s to pick up some books I ordered. I’ll see you around.’

  Betty had warned me that she and Robert had to go to ‘some dreary function’ that evening and that Tony and I would have to fend for ourselves. I returned to find Betty in despair.

  ‘This wretched dress! It must have shrunk or something – it’s split at the shoulder. And my hair’s fallen apart!’

  ‘Hang on, give me a needle and cotton and stand still I’ll sew it on you. Fortunately it’s on a seam so it won’t show.’

  I drew the edges of the black lace together as best I could and Betty suddenly giggled.

  ‘Do you remember when you sewed me into that dress for the Commem. Ball at Corpus and I had to wake you up in the small hours to cut me out of it?’

  ‘You always did eat too much and burst out of your clothes,’ I said severely. ‘Stand still, for goodness sake or I’ll drive this needle straight into you. There. How’s that?’

  Betty craned her neck to look over her shoulder.

  ‘That’s marvellous. I must remember not to breathe.’

  ‘Actually you’d better take a scarf or wrap to put over your shoulders in case you come apart again. Now, let’s see what we can do with your hair – I’ll get my electric curling tongs.’

  By the time she was ready and Robert had rushed in, hurled himself into a dinner jacket and hustled Betty away I was feeling quite exhausted.

  ‘Put on your coat,’ I said to Tony when he came in. ‘I feel in need of a large meal. I am taking you to Shipton-under-Wychwood to eat some of that delicious roast lamb they have at the pub there.’

  Driving through the Wychwood Forest we talked of general things – where Tony was going for his holiday (Greece), how Michael might do in his exams (quite well if he kept his head), and what Harriet and Hank might call their baby (Little-Friend-of-all-the-Earth?). Only when we had finished our garlicky lamb did I introduce the subject I really wanted to talk to him about.

  ‘Tony ... I feel somehow that there’s more to this Gwen Richmond business than you’ve told me. I don’t want to badger you, but I can see that you’re worried and unhappy about it all and – well, it might help to tell someone. You know that anything you say will be safe with me. I’m so fond of you, my dear, I hate to see you so wretched.’

  Tony stirred his coffee with immense care.

  ‘Yes, you’re right, of course. There is something. But – well – there’s no one positive thing that’s wrong, just several little things that don’t seem to add up.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘To begin with, I can’t understand why Gwen should have been on that ladder in the first place. I mean, there’s nothing on those shelves that she would have wanted – it was all British antiquarian studies – not her subject at all.’

  ‘I suppose something might have caught her eye and out of idle curiosity she went up the ladder to get it down?’

  ‘Well, that’s the other thing that puzzles me. She wasn’t wearing her glasses.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Her sight wasn’t particularly good – I mean, she couldn’t possibly have read the titles of books on the top shelves without her glasses and even when she was up the ladder she would have needed them to read the writing on the spine. She had sort of bifocals you see.’

  ‘And she wasn’t wearing them when you found her?’

  ‘No – that was the first thing I saw – her eyes, open and staring – almost as if she was accusing me of something – if that doesn’t sound too fanciful.’ He picked up his wine glass, stared at it without drinking and then put it down again.

  ‘But surely,’ I said, ‘her glasses would have come off when she fell.’

  ‘That’s what I thought had happened. But later I found them in their case on her desk, under a pile of books that had fallen off the shelves.’

  ‘I do see – it does seem odd...’

  ‘She was rather vain, you see. She hated to wear her glasses if anyone was there – she’d whip them off if she heard you coming into the room. She could just about manage without them, but if she’d been cataloguing for a couple of hours I’m sure she would have been wearing them.’

  ‘So you think that someone was in the room when it happened? That someone pulled the shelves down on top of her – someone murdered her? Surely that wouldn’t have been possible?’

&
nbsp; ‘I think that was to make it look like an accident. I think she was hit on the head.’

  ‘Well, yes, you said that that book – the something or other Britannia – fell on her?’

  ‘But it couldn’t have, because books of that size aren’t kept high up, they’re always on bottom shelves.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said inadequately. ‘How awful.’

  ‘Yes. You see how it is.’

  ‘But what about the police?’

  ‘They seemed to accept it as an accident – they weren’t to know about the glasses and the book. They said the screws holding the shelves on to the walls must have come out when she clutched at them when the ladder fell. I don’t know if they found them – it was pretty chaotic in there even before the shelves came down. And there was an inquest – it all seemed straightforward.’

  ‘You didn’t mention any of those things to the police?’

  He looked at his cup.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well,’ I said briskly, ‘I don’t suppose you thought about it at the time – what with the shock and everything – and I dare say it was difficult to come out with it after everything was cleared up, as it were.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘No – that’s not it. If I’m honest, I must admit that I didn’t want anyone to look into it too closely. Partly because of what any sort of scandal might do to Bodley - I mean, tabloid newspapers – you can imagine the headlines: “The Body in the Library” – that sort of thing – and the way they drag things up...’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  He started to talk very quickly.

  ‘Gwen wasn’t a very nice person – she offended a lot of people. Her manner was – well, difficult – and she had an unpleasant habit of always knowing something to everyone’s disadvantage, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know just what you mean.’

  ‘She’d been very strange for a little while before she died. Once she made some odd remarks about things coming home to roost ... I don’t know what she meant, it sounded very melodramatic ... and the past catching up with people.’