'That's a big responsibility.'
'I'm not laying it on you like that. Just pack up and go.'
'There must be more to it,' said Robin. 'I haven't seen you this uptight for years.'
Tom shook his head, as though to dislodge a persistent thought.
'I suppose this inquest has got to me. I'd never been to one before. I can't believe the coroner didn't pursue the investigation further. I also felt powerless. I'm not used to not being able to resolve queries and to explore possibilities till questions are answered. I can't see why the coroner was so uninterested in reaching a full explanation beyond a verdict on the immediate physical cause of death. How could such a puzzling incident be simply left as “open verdict”?'
* * *
Tom felt guilty after leaving Robin. He'd dumped onto him many of the questions humming round in his head. Robin had enough to contend with. They hadn't got round to looking at the notes he'd made. He always did this. “The jottings of an obsessive mind,” Laura had once called them, pages of reminders about building contacts with other universities and developing research opportunities.
Tom transferred his irritation for the time being to the task in hand – hunting through the untidy mess in the storeroom at the rear of Lab One in the laboratory block. Why is it, he thought, that you find all kinds of lost items except the one you're actually seeking? It was partly his own untidiness which was responsible for this situation. He also realised the error of leaving the lab technicians to sort it. Discarded apparatus and surplus office furniture tended to find their way here, in a haphazard fashion. No one person had ultimate responsibility, so the various stacks of boxes had grown more impenetrable over the past four or five years. Now the prototype apparatus used for the communication experiments with ants was not to hand. He did not even know whether it had been thrown out. That really would be a criminal waste of resources. On the other hand, he could recall over the years seeing some near-mint items of furniture in skips around the campus.
Where had he put the inventory? Perhaps that would have shed some light on the mystery. There was no great urgency and the inventory itself didn't matter. Tom felt more than a touch of that obsessiveness about detail which sustained him through his experimental work. By next week when he gave his “state of the Research Centre” address to the staff and post-graduate students, he wanted to be able to satisfy himself about particular points of departmental housekeeping, setting out future priorities and targets.
'Nothing much in the post,' said Jean. 'There's only one message on the voice-mail – from Hugh Mackintosh. He must speak to you.'
'What does he want?' Tom muttered.
Several stacked boxes of envelopes fell into the last clear space on the floor.
'Can I help, Professor Fortius?'
'No, please ignore me. I'm trying to find something.'
She did not pursue this. Tom was exercised over the possible reasons for Hugh's call. It was unusual. Hugh didn't normally leave messages like that. He rang at home over the weekend, or if it was a trivial matter, left it till Monday morning. It could be his concern over Tom's state of mind after the inquest. It isn't every day a key member of staff dies unexpectedly under mysterious circumstances. That was a possibility. He had to admit it was a very un-Hugh possibility.
'He asks you to ring as soon as you arrive at the office.'
'Odder and odder,' said Tom, shaking his head.
Hugh's secretary, Margaret, answered the phone.
'Hullo, Margaret,' said Tom. 'Is Hugh in?'
'No, he's popped out to see someone. He'll only be five minutes.'
'I'll ring back.'
'Wait a moment. He asked me to book an appointment for you when you rang.'
'Oh.' This was definitely not Hugh the minimalist manager. The awful feeling grew ever stronger that this wasn't sparked by the aftermath of Detlev's inquest.
'Have you some time this morning? He was particularly anxious to meet you before lunch.'
'Is eleven any good?'
'Yes, he should be back by then. I'll put you in the diary for eleven.'
Tom hoped once the funeral was well in the past and the police and other people had stopped asking questions, Hugh would settle back into his normal pattern of non-intervention. This amounted to virtual non-participation in the affairs of the Research Centre.
Before meeting Hugh, Tom had a further task. He looked at his watch. Nine-thirty, probably about right to make this particular telephone call. A mission only now had surfaced from his submerged memory of the inquest.
Seated to one side of his desk in the easy chair he called his thinking chair, he dialled Directory Enquiries for the number of the coroner's court. Afterwards, he looked at his watch – still sufficiently early – and dialled.
'Hello, is that the coroner's office? Could I speak to the clerk please – yes, it is urgent – I can't pass on a message, no – hello, are you the clerk who was present at yesterday's inquest? Good, my name is Professor Tom Fortius, Hull Wilberforce University – yes that's right, from my Department, yes – that's right, I was there, sitting near the door on the right – yes, with the black suit and, er, hair. This is a little difficult, but I need the opportunity to ask you something. At the point the verdict was announced, I noticed, were you feeling, that is – oh, please, don't ring off. I didn't mean – no, all I wanted to know was whether you'd meet me for lunch tomorrow – I don't know, I only just – yes – no, I promise, it's purely a professional matter – say, a quarter to one in the front lounge at the Beverley Arms – no, it won't compromise your professional role in any way. I can guarantee that. I considered being a magistrate you know, before this job became so time-consuming.'
On his way back through the office, Tom stopped by his secretary's desk.
'Excuse me, Jean. You haven't any idea where the prototype equipment we used for the social insect communication experiments is stored?'
'I'm sorry, Professor Fortius. You've already asked me.'
'I'm losing track. With you having been with us so many years, I've never had anything to do with the laboratories. I wouldn't know one end of a Bunsen burner from the other.' She smiled.
'No, of course not.'
'The technicians should be able to put their finger on it for you.'
'Yes,' he responded, unconvinced. 'The problem is our current staff haven't been with us long enough to know what I'm referring to.'
'Oh dear, that's difficult.'
Ever the diplomat. One of the reasons people found Jean so reassuring and calming in the stressed atmosphere of academic research, was her refusal to engage in any sort of banter or sniping. She rarely made any comment, or even hinted at a judgement on other people's work. Tom found it an occasionally irritating, but ultimately reassuring characteristic. He set off across the quadrangle towards Hugh's office, in a thoughtful frame of mind.
'Come in, Tom.’ With his distinctive Sandhurst accent, Hugh always came across as the aristocratic English gentleman, which meant he cut an eccentric figure in the University. Five-foot nine in height and rather portly, he invariably wore a Harris tweed, or a brightly checked sports jacket. Typically, his trousers were immaculately pressed cavalry twill of the off-duty army officer, hanging perfect length over brown leather shoes so carefully polished you could imagine using them as mirrors. His moustache and upright posture, whether seated or standing, completed the picture.
Tom was sure Hugh's cultivation of the image of the retired brigadier or colonel who had taken up country pursuits on his small farm between Hull and Malton, was one reason why, despite many critics of his laid-back approach to working with people, he'd survived for so long in his job as Dean. With his confident manner, he tended to cast opponents, especially younger ones, in the role of junior officers, or in the case of some new staff and students, in the role of apprentices, from which it was difficult for them to challenge him.
Hugh's days were numbered, though. It wasn't so much that colleagues saw his
old-fashioned manners as inherently bad. He was such an obvious anachronism in the increasingly robust, even brutal, contemporary world of higher education.
On the rare occasions when Hugh came straight to the point – as now – it was a very bad sign:
'I've just had the VC's latest pronouncements on targets for the coming round of income generation.'
'We used to call them research grants,' said Tom drily.
'Yes,' said Hugh absently. He wasn't renowned for his political subtlety.
'Depressing reading. Look at these figures for the professional courses – nurses, teachers, social work – far below our expected income.'
'You mean their student numbers, especially postgrad figures, are sky high,' said Tom. 'So the pressure's off them.'
'You can say that again,' Hugh agreed. 'Anyway, they're not our problem. The good news is that as far as sciences as a whole are concerned, we have an across-the-board agreement that in the next financial year, there will be no compulsory redundancies among academic staff on permanent contracts.'
Tom nodded without enthusiasm.
'Incidentally, Tom, I should have said at the outset how much I enjoyed your lecture the other day. That was a good write-up in the University Blah. If I may say, you did yourself no harm with senior management and from the point of view of your own career prospects that's no bad thing. There were people listening very carefully to your comments about forensic entomology, by the way. I have that on the best authority.'
'They were almost off the top of my head,' said Tom.
Hugh smiled. 'Don't say that, you'll tarnish your halo.'
'What about our work on insect predation?'
'Ah,' said Hugh. Tom knew immediately what this meant. 'Marvellous, but –' The parliamentary compliment, before the rapier thrust. He should have known.
All he could do was to wait for the sting in the tail – it was Hugh's style.
'So, on some fronts the future appears rosy,' said Hugh. 'Our research profile in entomology looks very respectable. However, in the immediate future we have to be careful, and ensure that we cut our cloth to suit our pocket. For the time being, and I emphasise it's probably only for the time being, we have to look on the debit side and reduce costs.'
Tom was seething. Damning with faint praise. 'Very respectable,' he ground through clenched teeth. 'Do you realise how we've sweated to bring extra contracts in.'
'The bad news,' said Hugh, 'is that our research centres have to meet even more stringent performance standards if they are to survive. Specifically, Tom, I'm afraid without an increase on your last year's income, you'll have to lose staff.'
'You mean we've no chance of replacing Detlev?'
'Well, you've appointed Robin Lovelace.'
'That's something and nothing. I've lost him to this externally funded expedition. So I'm back with no deputy.'
'I realise that. Lovelace's field trip is short-term as well, but I'm afraid this is over and above the Detlev and Lovelace situation.'
'So the message is you're doing great work and here's a kick in the teeth,' said Tom. 'The question is, by how much will we have to raise our threshold of income?'
'Significantly, I think, given the quantity of down-sizing we're doing in other areas.'
'For God's sake, Hugh, you sound like the chairman of ICI.'
'Sorry old chap,' Hugh said softly, 'I know it hurts.'
‘Not as much as it will hurt the University in four years time,' said Tom, 'when their entomological research goes down the pan.'
'There's more, I'm afraid. Let me put the issue in a broader context. The University is suggesting you boost the Centre's revenue from research by shifting the balance of its work from research into communication and predation among the social insects – to pathology.'
'For goodness' sake, Hugh. Who has the right to dictate this?'
'Senior management have every right, I'm afraid. University priorities rule in that area. We can anticipate as a strategic goal moving into competition with some of the established centres which shall be nameless. They've already pushed ahead with research into forensic entomology.'
'So the future will be based upon more lucrative areas for research.'
'I didn't say those words.'
'Curse my big mouth. You didn't need to.'
'Why curse?'
'Because you've lifted my words from the lecture. I should have kept quiet.'
'I have to say, Tom, this has been on the cards for some time. A number of other voices have been convergent on your own views. You should feel flattered. Perhaps the word is relevance. Take forensic entomology, for example. It seems to me to be indisputable that if you were to develop the work of the Centre in that direction, the applications would be of more direct use to the agencies in this region, such as the police.'
'Rather than working on insect predation with developing countries who have less money to pay our vast overheads.'
'Rather than spreading your meagre resources halfway across the globe, yes. The loaded meaning is your own. Look Tom, I realise you must be very bitter,' said Hugh, 'seeing the fruits of all your years of hard work being eroded by the winds of free market competition.'
You're mixing your metaphors a little, thought Tom, and it doesn't suit you. He responded out loud more softly for fear of antagonising Hugh and reducing the scope for negotiation:
'Give me the bad news in hard cash so we know what we're talking about.'
'Two and a half million, gross,' said Hugh. 'Earn that per year over the next three years, plus inflation and we'll call it all square.'
'Grief, man,' Tom exclaimed. 'That's nearly twice what we're earning now.'
Hugh spread his palms wide in a gesture of hopelessness.
'I tried to argue your case, but – what can I do?'
'This is ridiculous,' Tom said, lost for words in the face of such crassness on the part of his employers.
'What I'm giving you is only preliminary. It still has to go through committee and Senate,' said Hugh, trying to soften the blow. There'll be plenty of opportunity to argue your case.'
'Yes, and with Detlev dead, it will be even more against the tide than usual,' said Tom bitterly.
At the mention of Detlev's death, Hugh stiffened visibly. He was clearly unable to deal with that aspect of the situation. In contrast, Tom's inclination towards a softly-softly approach had melted away at the mention of the ludicrous financial target. His anger at the unfairness of it won out over other feelings. He recalled the last time his research base had nearly been wiped out, five years ago, when the Government pulled the plug on a wide range of biological, horticultural and oceanographic projects.
Tom walked to the door, opened it and turned. Hugh shrugged, rather pathetically he thought.
'I'll leave you with this thought, Hugh. If the grant goes, the Research Centre goes. If the Research Centre goes, then I go. The entire Department may be eclipsed by other departments – scientists, or professions allied to medicine – and two years from now you too will be nothing more than a memory.'
Chapter 4
Helen was seeing Robin off.
'Byeee, darling,' she said. 'Sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean all those horrid remarks.'
'All?'
'Robin, you've a gift for not responding the way I want.'
'Sorry.'
'And for pity's sake stop saying sorry.'
She saw his face. He suddenly looked so sad, like a little boy lost. 'Give me a hug,' she said.
He clutched her to him. Close, he thought, but not intimate, affectionate, not loving. That summed up their relationship.
Helen was nestled into Robin's coat, thinking, if only. There was so much she couldn't put into words. She didn't want him to go, because she'd miss him, but that was only part of it. She was scared of what would happen while he was away.
She drew away so she could see his face again. 'I'm going to walk straight away without waving you off,' she said. Robin thought he knew wh
at lay behind this. Helen couldn't stand goodbyes. They were too upsetting and drove her distracted.
I wish I could reciprocate, he thought as he hugged her.
The embrace was short and cursory, she thought as they parted, and she turned and imagined him walking away. It was ironic that in this farewell embrace they were no longer in eye contact. She was thinking and hoping. This would give her the space she desperately needed, after all this time, finally to exorcise Detlev from her heart and life.
* * *
Tom's departmental meeting had dragged on rather longer than expected. He resolved to apologise to Laura as soon as he walked in for being late and for everything else that had gone wrong between them. Perhaps it would heal matters sufficiently till they could find time to talk properly, away from the children. Somehow though, as he walked in, he knew this wouldn't happen; the meal was burnt, the kids were scrapping, and there was an urgent message from a colleague. He rang straight away. Laura was shaking with rage as soon as he came off the phone. 'I've a bunch of very anxious research staff,' he tried to explain. 'There's a budgetary crisis in higher education.'
'You're bloody telling me on top of everything else I'm spending too much,' she shouted.
'I am not telling you anything. I've only just walked in,' he shouted back.
'Two hours late.'
'I'm sorry.' His voice lowered in tone.
'You don't want me to buy that coat and the shoes to attend that reception at Hugh's next week. Well I shan't go without them and I shan't go in any case. I can't stand their stuck-up narrow ways.'
'Darling, I'm not exactly on the verge of being sacked.'
'But –'
'There isn't a "but".'
'Don't play your bloody academic games with me. You aren't in one of your meetings now.'
'Listen, darling, there may be redundancies, but it won't affect us.'
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