Cold Revenge (2015) (11 page)

‘So, have you found anything relevant to add to DCI Murray’s investigation?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Hanlon. She made no attempt to elaborate or say more. It was this unusually abrupt reply that triggered Dame Elizabeth’s formidable memory. Now she knew who Hanlon reminded her of.

The possibility alarmed her, almost like meeting a ghost. It’s not so, she told herself. There is something almost horrific about the past returning to haunt you. It’s ill omened. It never presages good. Her face, schooled in a thousand meetings, showed nothing of her inner turmoil. It cannot be.

She moved the thought to one side for later inspection. There is no point getting sidetracked in a meeting, particularly if you’re the one doing the distracting. She concentrated on the business in hand.

‘I’m waiting,’ she said. Time to remind the policewoman who was in charge here.

‘I’ve established that Dr Fuller is a habitual customer of a brothel specializing in S&M. That there is quite compelling circumstantial evidence linking him to the death of Hannah Moore,’ Hanlon said.

Dame Elizabeth rolled her eyes. ‘Dr Fuller’s sexual inclinations are his business,’ she said. She looked with hostility at Hanlon. ‘How many of your fellow male officers use pornography, have affairs or take favours from prostitutes on their patch?’ she demanded. She would not accept a lecture about morality from someone in the police.

Hillsborough, the Lawrence affair, Plebgate, the police federation, frivolous personal-injury claims involving kerbs and papercuts. And those were just what sprang immediately to mind.

‘More than I’d care to admit,’ said Hanlon, ruthlessly honest. ‘Fortunately, I don’t have to work with any bent policemen.’ Thank God for Enver, she thought, even DCI Murray for that matter, a perfectly happily married man, who bored his colleagues rigid with tedious stories and photos of his children.

Dame Elizabeth nodded, surprised at Hanlon’s candid answer.

‘There you are then,’ she said.

‘There is the possibility that he may have been pressuring students into sex for better grades,’ said Hanlon. It was a rumour she’d heard from a woman in her class, and one substantiated by Michaels, but she thought she’d air it, just to see the professor’s reaction.

Dame Elizabeth raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘The possibility,’ she said with heavy emphasis. ‘All sorts of things are possible; let’s try and confine ourselves to the empirically verifiable. Dr Fuller seems to be the victim of a certain amount of rumour and innuendo, none of which would warrant disciplinary proceedings, let alone police interest. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘May I remind you a girl is dead, Dame Elizabeth. That’s why the police are interested. It’s not out of a prurient interest in Dr Fuller’s sex life.’

Prurient, thought Dame Elizabeth. Not a word you hear every day. She looked into Hanlon’s menacing, cold eyes.

‘And that’s why we all want to find out who did it,’ she parried briskly. ‘Now, what do your fellow students have to say about him?’

‘That he’s hard-working, a good teacher, they like him,’ admitted Hanlon.

‘And what do you think?’ Dame Elizabeth tilted her open palms towards Hanlon in an over-to-you gesture.

Hanlon hesitated, unusual for her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. She was thinking back to Iris Campion, to her statement that
some of the girls say he can get a little too rough
.

She pushed a hand through her unruly hair and the sleeve of her dark jacket slipped backwards revealing her slim, muscular forearm. She was wearing a very geometric, severe silver and platinum bracelet. Its unadorned simplicity and austerity seemed chosen to mirror Hanlon’s personality. Dame Elizabeth stared at it, aghast. Veteran as she was of the need to keep a public face on at all times, her features remained impassive.

‘Oh well,’ she said faintly, her mind almost hypnotized by the ornament, then, ‘Do you mind if I ask you what your real name is? I’m assuming Gallagher isn’t it.’

‘No, not at all. I’m DCI Hanlon.’

Dame Elizabeth’s heart sank. Of course it is. I knew that, she thought. What else could it be. Hanlon gave her a business card with her rank and mobile number. Dame Elizabeth took it. There was just one more test, one more thing of which she had to satisfy herself.

‘That’s a very unusual bracelet you’re wearing.’

‘It’s German, from the Bauhaus movement,’ Hanlon said. ‘It belonged to my mother.’

Walter Gropius, the founder of Bauhaus, designed it, thought Dame Elizabeth. It’s so rare, it’s practically unique. And no, it didn’t belong to your mother, DCI Hanlon. And yes, that is empirically verifiable.

Let’s verify the hypothesis.

So be it.
Alea iacta est
. The die is cast.

‘May I see it?’

Hanlon gave her a puzzled look but undid the clasp and handed the small bracelet to Dame Elizabeth. It was surprisingly heavy and very well made.

‘Walter Gropius, the founder of Bauhaus, designed it,’ said Hanlon. ‘It’s very rare.’

Dame Elizabeth turned the piece of jewellery over between her fingers. There was a small message engraved on the inside. She couldn’t read the letters, they were too small, but she didn’t need to. Her eyes had been a lot sharper when she’d first read the inscription, her face then softening with love and delight.

That was in another country. In another century. In another city.

Her literary mind added,
And besides, the wench is dead
. And she shivered.

That was in Berlin. She knew what was written there:
Jann and L 1976
. The seven was written continental style with a bar through the stem.

She gave it back to Hanlon. ‘Thank you, it’s very distinctive.’

Hanlon nodded and placed it back on her wrist. She could have said, my mother left it to me after she died. She could have said, my mother’s name was Jennifer but the engraver, presumably German, got it wrong. He put Jann instead.

She could have said, I never knew who my father was, but I guess maybe his name began with L and maybe that’s why I choose not to have a first name.

The false reason she’d given Fuller in class, for not having a first name, was not too far removed from the reality. She could have told Dame Elizabeth that the name she was given came from her adoptive parents. She could have said, I want nothing to do with them or it. I’m Hanlon; I’m not that other girl. But she didn’t.

Hanlon never talked about herself. Like Iris Campion, she had rejected the idea of victimhood.

And Dame Elizabeth Saunders could have told her the truth, then and there, but she didn’t.

Dame Elizabeth seemed lost in thought as Hanlon stood up.

‘I’ve got a question for you,’ Hanlon said.

‘Go ahead.’

Hanlon looked at her, puzzled. The dame seemed suddenly very distant, as if totally lost in thought.

‘You seemed to believe that Kant was right, that we should obey moral laws, like do not lie, come hell or high water. Do you seriously believe that?’ Hanlon’s face showed barely concealed anger.

Something to be debated.

Dame Elizabeth nodded. ‘I do believe that, yes,’ she said, almost sadly.

‘Even if it would result in the death of an innocent person?’

The professor nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘even if someone were to be killed. Some things are worth dying for.’ Her voice was very quiet.

Hanlon shook her head contemptuously and turned and left the office.

Dame Elizabeth watched the door close and then buried her face in her hands, as a wave of self-revulsion engulfed her. I didn’t lie to you, DCI Hanlon, she thought to herself, but I sure as hell avoided the facts.

You can’t escape the truth, thought Dame Elizabeth. It catches us all up in the end. Kant knew that, and so do I.

Forty miles away, west of London, he ran a gentle but firm hand over the light Oxford stone of the seventeenth-century college building that ran along three sides of the quad. The fourth side was where the large vaulted arch led to the gatehouse and the outside doors of the college.

The manicured, rectangular lawn of the inner quadrangle was bordered by a low, knee-high hedge of box that he guessed to be maybe as old as the college. It was a beautiful, tranquil place, the busy, noisy streets of Oxford outside its walls unheard and unseen. Here there were the three colours, the green of the grass, the honey-coloured Oxford stone of the buildings and the blue of the sky overhead. It was very soothing.

He knew the college well, intimately even. He had worked there for a few terms on a temporary basis and had got to know every inch of its ancient fabric. He always made a habit of knowing the topography of wherever he worked in precise detail. He liked the feeling of freedom it brought. Years ago he had come across the phrase used on security passes the world over
, Access all areas
. He loved that expression. It was exactly what he liked to do, to be able to access all areas, to go where he pleased.

In this college, he knew, for example, that there was a hatch on the outside pavement that flapped outwards and led to the college buttery where beer and wine were stored. He still had a copy of the key. He knew there was a small and rarely used concealed gate, which led from the street to the Master’s private garden. He knew where there was a street light close to the wall of the college that students used to help themselves climb over, when the college gates were closed.

He usually took copies of master keys with him when he left a workplace, or in today’s increasingly electronic security, he stole swipe cards and password details. These days it was information, rather than hardware, that counted. He wouldn’t need keys for what he was about to do.

He checked that the iPod was cued correctly and that the leather gloves were in their correct pocket. Above his head,
Staircafe V
was carved into the lintel stone in antique, lettering, the lower case ‘s’ written as an elongated ‘f’ and the Roman ‘V’ for 5.

The steps were worn and shallow; they must have been cleaned recently, because they gleamed gently in the light. They spiralled upwards and he followed them to a heavy oak door, with
2B
on it in brass. The door was open, revealing a further door inside, and he knocked gently on this, while pulling on the supple, black leather gloves.

She opened the door almost immediately. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, her large eyes widening in surprise. ‘What do you want?’ She looked radiantly beautiful. Her mouth was full-lipped and inviting.

‘I just need to check on a couple of things about tonight.’

‘Well, do come on in,’ she said.

And he did. It was that easy.

Twenty minutes later, Ben Protheroe, a physics student who had the room above, passed by Laura’s room. The outside door was closed, ‘sporting the oak’ it was called in Oxford, and it meant you didn’t want to be disturbed. He could hear music coming faintly from her room, music with a heavy dance beat. He stood there for a moment, listening.

Ben Protheroe had never heard ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’ in his life. Neither had the girl inside, until now. He felt a stab of jealousy. He really fancied Laura. He found the thought of her in someone else’s arms unbearable.

Inside the room, sightless eyes stared at the ceiling while her killer danced gracefully to Sylvester. It had taken him a long time to learn to dance, but master it he had.

The carefully choreographed dance movements, lovingly practised, were now reflected endlessly in Wittgenstein’s mirror.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

‘And who found the body?’ asked Hanlon. She and Enver were driving down the A40 towards Oxford. The horizon was low and grey. Enver sat in the passenger seat. Hanlon reckoned it would take a good hour and a half at least to reach the Summertown police station near central Oxford, where Fuller was being held.

‘A student called Laura Thomson. It’s her room that Jessica McIntyre was staying in,’ said Enver. ‘She organized the seminar, the philosophy evening, and those students from Queen’s, about ten of them, had been given accommodation belonging to St Wulfstan students, as part of the arrangements.’

Hanlon swore angrily as a car pulled out in front of her without indicating. They hadn’t reached Northolt yet and were travelling ridiculously slowly, due to the pressure of traffic. Enver looked around him with interest at the nondescript housing sprawl. He rarely travelled outside London, had never been to Oxford. Today was a day out, like a treat at school.

I must travel more, he thought, all I know is North London and Rize. Rainiest place in Turkey. Well, Oxford here we come, I can broaden my horizons.

‘So what do we know?’ asked Hanlon, scowling at the traffic. Enver shook thoughts of his father’s home city from his mind.

‘McIntyre checked in at the college lodge at three o’clock. We know that. The proctor, that’s what they call the gate-keeper—’

‘I know what a proctor is, Detective Inspector,’ said Hanlon with ominous calm. Of course you do, thought Enver, you know everything. He felt a touch of guilt at this mutinous thought. My promotion has gone to my head, he said to himself.

‘Yes, ma’am. He gave her the room key, noted the time, she signed for it. That’s the last she was seen alive. Her phone wasn’t used subsequently. The coroner estimates the time of death at around five in the afternoon. Plus or minus, obviously. She was strangled, manually, as opposed to ligature; the bruising is quite clear, right-handed assailant. And strong. There was no sign of a struggle, so it’s a reasonable assumption she knew her killer well enough to let them get close.’

Hanlon nodded. The traffic was speeding up now and she changed gear on her new Audi TTS Coupé, enjoying the noise from under the bonnet and the kick of the two-litre engine. The car handled beautifully.

‘Is there any sign of S&M-style sex?’

‘No, ma’am,’ said Enver.

‘So what’s the evidence against Fuller then? Why is Oxford holding him?’

Enver scratched his thick, drooping moustache. ‘DCI Templeman, who’s the SIO on this, had heard of Fuller through the Hannah Moore investigation. I suppose he’s interested in crimes against students, with him being at Oxford.’