by Faith Martin
Dr Timothy Durning lived in a small cul-de-sac not far from the charming church, in a detached stone cottage with a grey-tiled roof and a wisteria climbing up the walls and blooming in all its pale lilac glory.
Claire, having got out from behind the wheel, stood regarding the scene with a wry expression on her face. ‘Bloody hell,’ was all she said.
Hillary couldn’t help but agree. The scene did seem almost too good to be true. It was quiet, with even the town’s limited traffic seeming to be muted behind all the cherry and magnolia trees that proliferated in the gardens of the eight houses comprising the little nook. No children played, creating a squeal or a fuss. No dogs roamed, barking or depositing little brown mounds on the pavement. There weren’t even any cars parked on the road, causing an obstruction.
‘What’s that film I saw yonks ago, set in some American place or other. Stepford Wives?’ Claire said. ‘D’you reckon this could be the English version?’
Hillary grinned. Wasn’t that the one where all the perfect housewives and mothers turned out to be androids or something? ‘Come on. Let’s see what Dr Durning has to say for himself.’
‘Right, guv. But if smoke starts coming out of his ears, I’m off!’ Claire warned her.
* * *
Somewhat disconcertingly, Dr Timothy Durning did indeed look rather handsome in a bland way, and was impeccably dressed, making him a perfect candidate for a resident of the fictional town of Stepford. But for all that, Hillary was fairly sure that he didn’t have robotic sub-routines.
At six foot or so, he was still very lean, with reddish-brown hair (dyed?) and dark brown eyes. His skin looked unlined (nip and tuck?) and was lightly tanned. All of which conspired to make him look years younger than she knew him to be, but that, presumably, was the point. He was also dressed in his trademark waistcoat and bow tie.
‘I take it you’re the police officers who called yesterday?’ he asked. His voice was bland, pleasant, but not, thankfully, robotic.
‘Yes, sir.’ Hillary and Claire produced their IDs while Hillary went through the standard explanation of who they were and what they did.
At the mention of Michael’s name the older man sighed gently, gave a philosophical nod, and invited them in.
The cottage was full of light, and Hillary wasn’t surprised when he led them through to a rear extension that had one wall practically made of glass. It revealed a small but lovely back garden, complete with a pond set amid a plethora of native plants. Several bird feeders hung from an apple tree and were currently playing host to a greenfinch, a pair of bluetits and a nervous-looking goldfinch. No doubt Mia de Salle would have approved of the wildlife pond.
‘Please, take a seat.’ The extension — like the majority of home extensions — had been made into a huge kitchen-diner, with a small seating area near the bi-fold doors. It was to this nest of chairs that he led them. ‘Do you want tea or coffee?’
‘Coffee, please,’ Hillary said instantly. She had an idea this man would make a proper pot, probably of a Brazilian blend, and she was never going to turn her nose up at that sort of offer. Claire opted for tea.
Dr Durning made the beverages in silence and with a neatness and economy of movement that some people seemed to naturally possess. He brought the cafetiere and teapot to the small coffee table on a large tray, upon which also rested small demitasse coffee cups, a Spode teacup and saucer, a silver jug of milk and a matching silver sugar dish. The spoons, naturally, were also silver.
For a moment all three set about making their drinks to suit their own tastes, while a grandfather clock ticked politely against one feature wall. Outside, the goldfinch finally succumbed to its nerves and flew off. A rapacious-looking starling quickly took its place.
A tall, all-glass display cabinet set in the seating area caught Hillary’s eye. It contained various small objects, of which she recognized only a lovely ammonite, an ancient flint arrowhead and what looked like a misshapen coin. The other artefacts were much more obscure but mostly seemed to be made out of badly corroded metal, bone or fossilized wood.
Catching her looking at it, the academic smiled. ‘That’s my collection of historic curios,’ he admitted, looking a little wistful. ‘I’m fascinated by what time does to everything it touches. We can’t easily measure it or display what it does to human beings, of course, but we can see what it does to inanimate things.’
‘As a historian, I can understand your fascination,’ Hillary agreed, not sure why the contents of the cabinet were making her feel uneasy. ‘Which king is on the coin?’
‘Emperor,’ Timothy Durning corrected her with a smile. ‘It’s Roman.’
Hillary nodded, but wasn’t about to let herself get sidetracked by his hobbyhorse. ‘You have a lovely spot here, Dr Durning,’ she said instead.
‘Thank you. Yes. It suits me. I can write my books here in peace.’
‘So you write?’
‘Yes — historical non-fiction for people with an interest in history, but who don’t want too much academic dryness.’
Hillary nodded. She knew such books sold all right, but she doubted they earned their authors huge royalties. But it probably did his ego a lot of good to be a published author. ‘Do you miss the university life at all?’ Hillary took a sip — Costa Rican, not Brazilian — and half-closed her eyes in pleasure.
‘Not really. At some point I would always have left, I think, in order to do proper research. Teaching had its rewards, but it didn’t leave me much time for a proper in-depth study of my passion.’
‘What era of history interests you?’
‘Roman Britain.’
‘Was that Michael’s choice too?’
‘Michael didn’t really confine himself to one specific era. He was interested in the Romans, certainly, but also in the Saxons and the Britons.’
Hillary, now that she’d got him talking, decided to get down to business. ‘You were his favourite tutor. Did you know that?’
Timothy Durning crossed one elegantly long leg over the other. He looked a little lost for words suddenly, which surprised Hillary somewhat. She would imagine this man to be very erudite, and seldom socially inept. And he’d known they were coming. Surely he’d rehearsed over and over in his head what he would, and would not say?
Catching her eye, he must have read something of her thoughts, for he smiled wryly. ‘I don’t quite know how to answer that question. If I say yes I sound big-headed, and I’m worried you’ll read more into it than you should. If I say no I run the risk of sounding disingenuous and you’d probably suspect me of lying. You can see my dilemma?’
Hillary nodded. She could, actually. He wanted to show himself in the best light, which was only natural. And not, in itself, suspicious. No doubt he’d been dismayed to hear that a sad and sordid episode from his past was being raked up again, and was too intelligent not to see how the reopening of Michael’s case was bound to cause him trouble — regardless of whether he had anything to hide or not.
‘Why don’t you just be honest and straightforward and let me do the rest?’ Hillary advised him with a slight smile and a level look.
For a moment, the academic considered this, and then smiled again. ‘Now who’s being disingenuous?’ he murmured, then gave a weary shrug. ‘Well. I’ll do my best,’ he said.
Beside Hillary, Claire had already got out her notebook, and was unobtrusively taking notes.
‘So. Were you aware that you were Michael’s favourite tutor?’ Hillary asked, going straight back to where she’d left off. She was not about to allow this man to get away without answering every question she wanted answering. Well, not without some serious squirming on his part, anyway.
‘I knew we had a good rapport, yes,’ Dr Durning finally admitted, ‘and by that, I mean nothing more and nothing less than the sum of my words. Some students go to university for the experience, rather than to actually study, which is understandable but annoying. Some students aren’t particularly gifted, and struggle bu
t work hard, and these need a different sort of attention. And some, like Michael, are just naturally gifted. These, obviously, are like gold dust to tutors such as myself, and are a dream to teach.’
‘And it’s easier to get to know and build up a rapport with the golden ones?’ Hillary mused, careful to keep any hint of censure out of her tone. ‘Yes, I can see how that would be. You were drawn to Michael because he was gifted?’
‘Not only that. He had a real passion for history, the same way that I have. He enjoyed discovery — finding out facts, hunting down little snippets that helped to add to the jigsaw puzzle that is the past. It was in his blood, the same way it’s in mine. It’s such a fluid, alive, creative thing — that’s what most people don’t understand. They think history is all about dry-as-dust facts, dates, and musty, boring old books. But that’s just where they’re wrong! So wrong! It’s not like mathematics or physics, where things either are or aren’t. History changes all the time, and our understanding of it changes with it. Look at what happened when they found King Richard in that car park!’
He was sitting a little forward on his chair now, his face and voice animated. ‘All the debate there’d been for decades about whether he really was a hunchback, or whether it was the result of “bad press” by his enemies! And then they found his skeleton really did have a curvature of the spine! How Michael would have loved all that . . .’
Hillary knew when someone was genuinely fascinated by something and when they were faking it, and there was no doubt in her mind that this man lived and breathed his subject. There was a glow to his face, a force in his words that showed how much he was engaged in his topic. And, from what she knew of Michael Beck, he too had been similarly enthralled by the past. Which was all very interesting, but she needed more meat on the bones.
‘But he didn’t live to see it, did he?’ she slipped in quietly, and saw all the animation drain out of the older man.
‘No.’ Timothy Durning swallowed hard. ‘No, he didn’t.’ His hand, when he raised his tiny coffee cup, was shaking slightly.
‘You must have been very shocked when you heard about his murder,’ Hillary said quietly.
‘Yes I was. Utterly shocked. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘By then you’d left Bristol, am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because of Michael’s allegations against you?’
‘Yes. But those allegations were never substantiated,’ he put in quickly but without any impetus, as if he merely said the words out of force of habit.
Hillary knew that other pupils of this man had come forward to back up Michael’s claims, but didn’t see the point — yet — of pushing Timothy Durning on the issue.
She contented herself by asking, ‘You agreed to resign though?’
‘Of course. My position was untenable by then. And I didn’t want the university to suffer . . .’ His voice wavered slightly and he abruptly put down his cup on the coffee table. ‘I’m sorry, but this is very difficult for me. It’s a time of my life that I prefer not to dwell on.’
‘I can understand that. You must have blamed Michael for what happened to you.’ Hillary was careful to make this a statement, rather than a question.
‘Not so much as I blamed myself,’ Timothy Durning said with a half-laugh.
‘Care to enlarge on that?’ Hillary tempted.
The older man heaved a sigh. ‘Look, I’m not saying I never made a pass at Michael, because I did. But it was a genuine mistake, a genuine misunderstanding. I accept that I made a bad error of judgement. I thought . . . but I was wrong.’
‘You thought that Michael would welcome an . . . overture . . . from you?’ Hillary helped him out.
‘Yes. Exactly. But instead he looked shocked and totally surprised. I realized the instant I did it that I’d made a dreadful mistake. I apologized at once. I told him I’d made a mistake, I thought I’d seen signs from him that obviously weren’t there.’
‘And he accepted this apology? Accepted the explanation?’
‘I thought so. At the time,’ Dr Durning’s voice dropped slightly.
‘But after some thought, he pursued a complaint?’
‘Yes.’
Hillary nodded. And then said gently, ‘That must have hurt.’
‘It did, yes.’
‘You felt he’d betrayed you?’
‘No!’ Timothy exploded, then just as quickly deflated again. ‘Yes, perhaps a little. I just wish that if he hadn’t been satisfied with my explanation that he’d have come to me for more clarification. I think that if he had done, I could have made him see that it was all my fault — entirely. And made him understand that I really was horrified to have caused him . . . Well, that the last thing I’d meant to do was make him feel . . .’
The words trailed helplessly off. The grandfather clock continued to tick impassively. Outside, a blackbird picked a fight with another blackbird, probably over territory. Dr Durning sighed heavily. ‘It was all such a mess,’ he finished simply.
‘Did you see Michael after you agreed to resign?’
‘No, of course not. That would have been very inappropriate.’
‘Why do you think he decided to make the complaint official?’ Hillary asked, genuinely curious.
‘I assumed his girlfriend made him do it,’ Dr Durning said with a shrug.
‘Mia de Salle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I ask,’ Hillary knew she needed to be very delicate now, ‘if you knew he’d been seeing Mia de Salle for over a year at that point, what made you think he might be open to instigating a relationship with you?’
Timothy Durning smiled gently. ‘I was convinced Michael was bisexual. Why else?’
‘Do you still think that?’
For a moment, the academic’s eyelids flickered. Then he looked out of the window at the flying black feathers as the two blackbirds continued their noisy avian brawl. ‘You know, I think I do. I think Michael wasn’t really that sure of his own sexuality and what I did scared him because it made him face up to things he’d rather have kept buried deep inside him.’
Hillary glanced at Claire, who raised a thoughtful eyebrow. Either Dr Durning was indulging in a bout of some serious wishful thinking — or he wasn’t.
And if he wasn’t — did they need to start looking for a possible boyfriend who might have played a role in the dead man’s final months of life? A secret part, since nobody seemed to know of his existence . . .
* * *
‘What did you make of all that, guv?’ Claire asked ten minutes later as they sat in a pleasant pub, overlooking the pleasant market square and eating a pleasant meal of chicken and chips with a not-quite-so-pleasant side salad.
‘You think our dishy doc was just indulging in so much pie-in-the-sky about our victim being bi?’
Hillary shrugged. ‘It’s been ten years. Memories have a habit of becoming rose-coloured with age.’
Claire sighed. ‘He stuck to his alibi for the time of Michael’s murder.’
‘Not exactly airtight, was it, as DI Weston found out,’ Hillary reminded her. According to Dr Durning, he’d been at home all that day. He’d seen a neighbour at some vague point in the morning, and had done some shopping in a local supermarket in the afternoon.
‘Ah, the airtight alibi, so beloved of Agatha Christie fans everywhere,’ Claire grinned, spearing a chip. ‘In her books, the one who couldn’t possibly have done it, always did it. Right?’
‘Whereas, back in the real world, the vast majority of suspects have alibis that leak like sieves, and mean exactly nothing,’ Hillary said. ‘But if Durning has been leading us up the garden path, I thought he did it rather well.’
And on this rather morose thought, she speared a chip of her own, and bit into it with pleasure.
Opposite her, Claire eyed the dessert menu.
CHAPTER TEN
Claire and Hillary were unlucky enough to get stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway on the way back to Oxford
which ate up practically the rest of the afternoon. When they finally pulled into HQ in Kidlington, neither one of them was in a particularly happy or relaxed frame of mind.
‘You get straight off home, Claire,’ Hillary said to her relieved colleague as she opened the passenger door of the car. By her watch it was just gone five o’clock anyway. ‘I’m going into the office just to check in case something’s come in that needs seeing to.’
‘Thanks, guv,’ Claire accepted happily.
It was as she walking across the parking lot towards the main entrance that Hillary noticed Gareth Proctor, standing beside his car, with a man opposite him, talking earnestly.
They hadn’t seen her, and she found herself instinctively slowing down and moving towards the trunk of a large, flowering horse-chestnut tree. She didn’t exactly conceal herself behind it, but she did take advantage of its shade and cover in order to watch the two men closely.
She couldn’t have said, at that moment, just what it was about them that had pinged her radar, exactly. They were certainly not arguing. The man with Gareth looked to be around his own age and build, and nothing about his attitude gave her the impression of aggression. If it had, she’d be heading across there now, in case her colleague needed backup.
Something about Gareth’s companion — maybe the shortness of his haircut and the erect bearing — told her that, like Gareth, he was more than likely not a former soldier, and she felt herself relax a little, but still didn’t move. There was no reason why Gareth shouldn’t be chatting to a friend, of course. His workday was over, and he had most likely prearranged for the other man to meet him in the car park so they could go on for a drink somewhere.