Caroline Minuscule (2 page)

The room was not full. Philip Primrose, who seemed to live in the Department, was effortlessly dominating a little group in the corner by the hot water machine. A few individuals sat elsewhere, sheltering behind newspapers – protective screens, thought Dougal, and counted two
Guardians
, one
Times
and one defiant
Daily Mirror
. Primrose glanced up in mid-sentence, as if scenting fresh prey, but no one else even looked at him.

Dougal walked casually to the notice board, his muscles feeling as taut as piano wires. It was so tempting to give way to the urge to confide: oh, by the way, someone's gone and strangled Gumper downstairs. He pretended to read the small ads on the board instead. Usually they fascinated him: they were peepshows on other people's lives, glimpses of alien mythologies – ‘Vegetarian (Vegan) nonsmoking Feminist seeks flat share with similar . . .'; ‘Will the person who stole my briefcase from the library
PLEASE
act like a rational & responsible adult . . .'

Today, though, while his eyes were on the board, his attention was elsewhere. Had the killer been looking for something among that jumble of papers on Gumper's floor? Had he found it? Did its presence (or absence) provide the reason for Gumper's death? Perhaps Gumper had lived a double life.

Dougal forced his mind away from the problems downstairs. With luck, they wouldn't be his. But he wasn't safe yet and he couldn't afford to ignore his surroundings.

Philip Primrose was telling an anecdote about Oxford, his favourite subject (apart from himself), which involved much slapping of his plumply tubular thighs. Dougal had no need to listen or to look. He knew the story and could visualize the way it was being told and received – Primrose's audience (a good one: four people) was like habitual television viewers, watching and hearing without concentration, almost without interest: a vacuum was being filled, and that was sufficient.

Dougal turned away from the notice board and sat heavily down in a nearby armchair, which a previous occupant had angled away from the rest of the room. He found himself facing a poster showing sunset over the Atlas Mountains – a surreal landscape with a romantically clothed Arab perched on a camel in the foreground, brandishing a musket invitingly at the camera. Underneath, the caption read,
MOROCCO
:
REALM OF TIMELESS BEAUTY
; someone had added a comma with a red felt-tip pen, and the words
BAKSHEESH
&
BUGGERY
. He wished he could be there, away from that disgusting object downstairs which had forced its way into his life.

He opened his briefcase on the assumption that it was better to look as if he was doing something. It contained a green envelope file with his notes, an eight-by-ten photograph of a page of manuscript, which he should have returned, together with his transcription, to Doctor Gumper last Thursday, a library book – Sandys'
History of Classical Scholarship in the Middle Ages
, volume 1, and a green-jacketed Penguin crime novel.

Without hesitation, he chose the latter. His place was marked by a photograph of Amanda. He tried to read, but Gumper in memory and Primrose in actuality kept intervening. Dougal glanced at his watch: seventeen minutes past five; in five minutes he would start walking to the Marlborough and get there for opening time. He wanted a pint of beer in the padded security of the pub more than he could ever remember wanting anything; he hoped to God that no one discovered Gumper before he had time to leave the building and anaesthetize the nightmare with alcohol.

The rambunctious bellow of Primrose's laughter rolled over the Common-Room – he had evidently reached the climax of his anecdote. Dougal had a sudden craving to leap up and hit Primrose over the head with a coffee table. Or, more subtly, to whisper in his ear that everyone in the Department called him Madame Pee-Pee behind his back (which wasn't true – only Dougal did).

Oh, God, Primrose was starting up his seduction routine, prefacing it with a story from Cambridge, where his parents lived. Dougal had watched the routine in action several times during the last few months. It never varied, though its object altered, usually for the worse, every week or so. Primrose had started in October with the prettiest postgraduate female in the Department. The technique involved the closest physical proximity (without any breach of decorum), cups of coffee from the hot drinks machine, a breathless résumé, or rather extended exposition, of Pee-Pee's academic career to date and The Invitation. The intended victim would make her excuses – husbands, boyfriends, previous engagements and, on one glorious occasion just before a seminar, a blunt dismissal from a student from Texas: ‘Ah, piss off, pruneface, you make me wanna puke.' Primrose had reached the spots and spectacles at the plainer end of the spectrum, but his ardour was undiminished.

Dougal stared at his book and monitored the conversation behind him; it was preferable to listening to his own thoughts, after all. At present Primrose's affections seemed to be directed towards a fat girl with lank black hair and a pendulous lower lip. Dougal thought she was called Muriel. Pee-Pee was sympathizing with her, at great length, on the misfortune she had suffered – getting her first degree at a red-brick university. ‘Of course,' Primrose consoled, ‘while Oxbridge undoubtedly marks a chap for life, it doesn't mean that the quality of the academic experience is any less valid elsewhere.' Big of you, thought Dougal.

He saw with relief that his five minutes were up. He closed the book, returned it to his briefcase and struggled out of the low-slung armchair. Primrose looked across the room at him, his gold-rimmed spectacles twinkling with sociability. Dougal avoided his eye and sidled out of the Common-Room into the corridor. He began to run down the stairs, three at a time, in his relief, but slowed to a more decorous pace as the thought occurred that it might look as if he was running away from something. He resisted the temptation to glance at Gumper's door on the first-floor landing. It wasn't difficult. As he went down the last flight of stairs, he realized that he had automatically pursed his eyes to thin slits. See no evil, or at least not too much evil.

His habitual optimism was returning; it didn't obliterate the events of the last few minutes, but it rearranged their contours in his mind. It was going to be all right: no one would connect him with Gumper's death – his presence in the building was explained by his visit to the Common-Room. The worst he need expect was routine questioning by the police at some point, for presumably they would check all Gumper's students as a matter of course.

The corridor on the ground floor was empty, too. Dougal skipped out of the building, feeling like a reprieved prisoner, and turned left into the dimly lit alley which led to the college's side entrance. There was no one in sight.

He set out briskly, swinging his briefcase. He was only ten yards away from the Department when a burly shape slid out of a darkened doorway into his path.

‘Hullo. I've been waiting for you.' The stranger moved a little closer. ‘I'd like to have a chat.'

T
he second shock of the evening was worse than the first. Dougal stood like a statue, rigid with fear. It couldn't be the police already, and knowing who the man must be, he wanted to run. But the weight of his knowledge was like a physical impediment to movement.

‘Please,' the stranger said.

The monosyllable changed everything. The man might have been asking him for a light. Dougal looked up at the man's face – he was several inches taller – faintly illuminated by the light over the doorway. It told him nothing.

‘What do you want?' Dougal heard himself saying. He was rather surprised that he was able to say anything at all.

‘To talk to you. Wouldn't take a moment. We could have a drink?'

Damn it, thought Dougal, why was the man being so polite? You don't expect probable murderers to specialize in old-fashioned courtesy. It was unsettling. It was also reassuring – he was in a position to refuse (he hoped) and rush off home by way of a crowded, well-lit tube train. Perversely, this drove him to accept. Afterwards he wondered why he had done so, but at the time it seemed natural – frighteningly automatic, almost – to prefer the stranger's company to his own.

The man suggested going to the Lamb. ‘It's a bit of a walk, I know, but I imagine we'd both be more comfortable away from all this.' He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the History Department. Dougal nodded.

The stranger led the way down the alley and they walked without obvious haste out of the college. In the street they walked side by side, a yard apart, down to Russell Square. It had begun to drizzle; the garden in the middle of the square looked dank and uninviting. Dougal's companion put up his umbrella and sheltered them both.

Neither of them spoke – Dougal had the uncanny sensation that they were both too busy sizing up each other's physical presences, like strange dogs uncertain whether to sniff or snarl.

Lamb's Conduit Street appeared on the right. They crossed it diagonally and walked into the crowded warmth of the pub.

‘What can I get you?'

‘Special Bitter, please.' Dougal changed his mind. ‘No, better make it Ordinary.' There were two empty high stools by the window ledge just inside the door. Dougal put his briefcase on one of them and straddled the other. ‘I'll keep these for us.'

‘Standing and drinking is so uncomfortable,' the man said. ‘I've never been able to understand why some people actually prefer it. Shan't be a moment.'

The stranger nudged his way skillfully into the ebb and flow of drinkers popping in for a quick one or two after work. The atmosphere was smoky and loud with conversation. Dougal watched the back view of his companion as far as intervening bodies allowed him to do so. It was the first time he had been able to see even part of him clearly. The first impression was one of size – he was comfortably over six foot and the navy-blue raglan overcoat he wore made him look broad to match. Dougal caught a glimpse of dark blue pinstripe trousers beneath it, and gleaming black shoes.

The man turned and weaved carefully through the crowd. He put down the drinks – a pint and a double whisky – on the window ledge. Dougal felt envious of the way his hands were steady.

He sat down, raised his glass and drank. He looked with frank curiosity at Dougal, who felt he might as well do the same. If the man's back view had suggested a prosperous professional of some sort, the front view amply confirmed it. His hair, flecked with grey and thinning at the temples, was neatly cut; the face radiated a well-fed, anonymous respectability – the man looked distinguished, thought Dougal, though it was odd that he had so few lines. He was wearing a silk shirt, a pair of plain gold cuff links, and the sort of tie which has school or regimental associations.

His companion noticed the direction of Dougal's glance and, surprisingly, chuckled. ‘I'm from Charter-house today.'

Dougal laughed.

‘My name's Hanbury – James Hanbury.'

‘William Dougal.' They shook hands solemnly. Dougal wondered where the hell this was all leading. Had he been stupid to give his own name?

Hanbury ran his finger round the rim of his glass. ‘I was in that . . . seminar room, is it? – the room next to Gumper's – half an hour ago. The door was open, so I could hear very well.' He took a long sip of his whisky.

The pause gave Dougal time to think of the implications – as he suspected Hanbury had intended. Hanbury must have heard him go in and out, twice, of Gumper's room; if he had been able to see as well, he would have noticed Dougal's indecision – possibly seen him wiping the door handle. But it didn't make sense: if Hanbury was the murderer, why should he go out of his way to meet Dougal? Supposing Dougal's arrival had prevented him leaving the building, why hadn't he slipped away while Dougal was in the Common-Room?

‘You knew Dr Gumper?' enquired Hanbury blandly.

Knew
. So Hanbury probably had killed Gumper. Dougal fought an instinct to recoil physically; this was the first killer he had met and he was surprised that the urge to recoil was so weak. In fact, he realized, the only thing which really concerned him was the worry about his own safety: where and why does a killer stop killing?

‘He was my tutor,' he said at last, because there seemed no reason not to.

‘Really? What's your subject?'

Dougal felt suddenly oppressed by the unreality of the situation – this could be an interview with a prospective employer, or a heavy-going chat with an elderly relative.

‘The influence of the Carolingian court on the transmission of pagan Latin literary texts in the early Middle Ages.' The words rolled out mechanically: so many people asked this question, and most of them changed the subject when they heard the answer.

‘Dr Gumper was an expert on the period?'

‘Yes, I suppose so. He thought so, and I suppose he was. He knew most about the script, of course.'

‘Would I be right in thinking' – Hanbury took another long swallow of his whisky – ‘that you yourself have a . . . working knowledge of the subject?'

Dougal suspected the conversation had reached a crossroads of some sort – Hanbury had spoken like a chess player making a gambit which might prove crucial. He hesitated before replying, choosing his words with care.

‘I've an overall grasp of it, you could say. Nothing like Gumper's, though. I know a fair amount about the script – Caroline Minuscule. I know where to look for information.' On impulse he added, ‘One of the reasons I chose the subject was its obscurity. The less work that's been done on something, the easier it is to produce adequate research without too much effort. You don't have to bother with so many secondary sources. Big fish and little ponds.'