Dying Fall (19 page)

In one of them, the one furthest from the towpath, a handsome young man was leaning intimately towards a bulky young woman. The sun glinted on his hair and her muscles. Stobbard and Jools.

At this point Tina's chain came off.

‘Even the old bike needs a rest,' she said. ‘D'you know how to fix it? 'Cos I'm blowed if I do.'

I let my bike fall beside hers. It was a simple enough job, if messy.

‘There – all you need to do now is pull up the gear lever a little. OK?'

‘OK. But I reckon your hands aren't. Still, I don't suppose they'll do a nail inspection when they pull us a pint.'

I rubbed hard with a tissue. The last people I wanted to see me this afternoon were Stobbard and Jools. I put out a hand to stop Tina.

‘That man there – I'm supposed to have a date with him on Tuesday. And the woman's the bassoon player –'

‘The famous Jools? Built like a brick shit-house, isn't she? He's a bit of all right, though. Hey – you're all right: they're having a barney. If that don't beat cock-fighting.'

We watched as Stobbard stood up and pushed away from the table. He slammed his fist on the table, and Jools stood up too. I think she'd have hit him had he not seized her wrist. Then they flung away from each other, and went off in opposite directions. I'd have given my eyeteeth to know what they were arguing about.

We too drank on the terrace. Tina wanted to hear all about Stobbard and the date for Tuesday. The idea of the ballet appalled her, until she reflected on all those young men leaping round the stage. ‘All them tights. All them bums. All them big thingies. Should turn you on nicely. You won't want me around, that's for sure.'

‘I won't.'

‘You'll have to square it with Chris, mind. I couldn't take the evening off without his say-so. And I'd love to see his face when you tell him why.'

‘I may have mentioned I was going with a friend to the ballet.'

‘That particular friend? Thought not. Well, you'll have to. And fix up about afterwards. I take it there'll be an afterwards. You want to make sure of it, a bloke with a bum like that.'

Maybe I could have coped with the eternal music if Tina hadn't insisted on singing it tunelessly under her breath. And she thought it necessary to ask me where I was off to every time I left the room. By nine I could have screamed.

I would retire to the loo. At least she couldn't follow me there.

There were three conversations I'd like to have. One with Jools, another with Stobbard, and a third with Tony. If Stobbard fancied me – and Tony had assured me he did – what was he doing with Jools, whom he pretended to loathe? All I could expect was reassurance, which I could get more easily from Tony. I found my fingers shaking as I dialled his number. I made a mistake and had to start again.

I got his answering machine, of course. No, I did not want to leave a message. Then I realised: Saturday night. A gig. Worcester, as I recalled, in the Cathedral. Where Tony was, Stobbard and Jools would be too.

So I dialled Tony again. Would he save my life and phone me as soon as he could?

With rain like this, there was no point in trying to persuade Tina to cycle to the shops with me to buy the Sunday papers. But I had to devise some scheme to escape the incessant noise, and the relentless investigations into what I was marking and the marks I was giving. As before, I retired to the loo to think.

The modem. That was worth pursuing. The most important thing, come to think of it. And it had to be with Aftab. Aftab, whose friend Manjit hadn't been seen in college since I'd introduced her to the Community Liaison Police Officer on Thursday.

‘Tina,' I said authoritatively when I returned to the living room, ‘I want to go and get the papers. Wouldn't be Sunday without the papers. And the father of one of my students has opened a new shop just down Smethwick High Street.'

‘Hell, there's newsagents bloody everywhere. Why bloody Smethwick, and on a day like today, too?'

‘Because I want to talk to the student, too. And I want to buy some fresh coriander and it's cheaper down Smethwick.' My own Black Country roots were showing.

‘I don't like it. What's Chris going to say?'

‘No idea. I'm not going to ask him.'

‘But –'

‘If you don't want to take me, I'll call a taxi.'

Having coerced Tina into taking me, I then had to make sure she didn't follow me into the shop. It was going to be hard enough to work on Aftab without having an official audience. I contemplated taking a knife to slash one of her tyres, but I couldn't quite work out the logistics.

‘Two minutes,' she said, parking a couple of yards from the shop.

‘I'll come out when I've finished. Anything I can get you, by the way?'

She snorted sullenly.

The shop was blessedly empty. Aftab greeted me with a shy smile. He was on the cash desk. His head was supported by a padded surgical collar. I made round, impressed eyes.

‘Done it lifting, miss. What can I do for you?'

I decided to risk the truth. ‘Someone tried to kill me the other day. A letter bomb, at college. They think I know more about Wajid's murder than I do. I don't know anything at all, in reality. But I'd like to. And you knew about his money. What else do you know about?'

‘Honest – they tried to kill you?'

I nodded.

‘And you don't know anything?'

‘The clue you gave me about his clothes and everything's all I've got to go on.' Hang the melodrama. ‘But I think you know something else. I think you're looking after something.'

He stared at me for a second and disappeared through the stockroom door. I couldn't believe it was going to be as easy as this. But he returned in a couple of minutes with a large envelope. I'd expected a modem but I got a wad of scribbled notes as well.

I thrust a fiver at him. ‘Photocopy the lot, will you? Fast.'

He did as I asked, and I gathered a fistful of respectable Sundays for camouflage. He came back to the cash desk. The photocopies were still warm, collated and stapled. My fiver lay on top.

I pushed it back.

‘No. Don't want you to pay. OK. But just for the papers.'

‘Thanks.'

‘Miss … ‘he dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Any news of Manjit? She was coming to see you, and I haven't seen her since.'

‘I'm sure she's all right. But that's all I know. But –' I was going to add that I'd keep him posted when I noticed a brown Datsun just across the street. I'd no idea how long it had been there. The rain was so heavy I couldn't see who was driving it, and I found my stock of bravery was suddenly exhausted.

‘Aftab, does your brother still drive his mini-cab?'

‘Sure.'

‘Would he take me home? Right now?'

He nodded.

‘Is there a back way?'

‘Follow me.'

He led the way through the stock rooms. Garlic, aubergines, adverts for Asian films, soft-porn magazines and sophisticated-looking watches, all rubbing shoulders with photocopy paper and Kit-Kats. A kind-looking woman averted her face as I passed. A man, tired-faced and with a nasty cough, shouted upstairs to his son, with a gesture apologising for the tardiness of all sons. At last Imran, gentle and bespectacled with a degree in accounting he couldn't find a job to use, ran downstairs. I scribbled Tina's name and her car-registration number.

‘She's in the red Escort just outside, Aftab. Tell her I've had to go home, and that I'll explain why. Tell her I'm very sorry. It's to do with someone outside.'

The whole family whispered, concern on every face. They wanted to help me.

And I might have led a killer straight to their door.

I grovelled to Tina, very thoroughly. I promised I'd explain to Chris and take responsibility and his bollocking. I promised too to hand over the modem and the notes – I'd planned to anyway. Since she didn't know about the photocopies, I reasoned there was no need for him to worry about them and I filed them among my marking. The worst part, from her point of view, was that I hadn't mentioned the Datsun. She'd taken no special interest in it, and couldn't even be sure whether it had followed her back. Now, however, was hardly the time to lecture her on the use of the rear-view mirror.

Chris turned up just as I was getting lunch, presenting me with the problem of stretching chicken meant for two to serve three. Tina watched me slice the breasts, chop onion and mushrooms, find tomato puree, and rescue the cream from a couple of bottles of milk. I think it was the mace and nutmeg that finally drove her to asking Chris if she could take the rest of the afternoon off and go and find a pub steak with her boyfriend. Chris agreed, with an odd expression on his face.

The envelope wiped it off, fast.

‘What the hell?' He was on his feet already.

‘Calm down. Only papers. Aftab having a belated attack of conscience.'

‘Why?'

‘Because I told him about the letter bomb.'

‘For Christ's sake, I thought we'd agreed –'

‘He didn't reveal anything all those hours you people were talking to him. He told me only when he was convinced it was a matter of life and death.'

Chris burrowed in the envelope. ‘Wajid's modem. Well, well, well. And what's this lot?'

‘Notes for his computing project. I can't make head or tail of them, of course. But I thought one or two of your colleagues might.' I smiled seraphically.

‘I suppose you haven't a freezer bag handy? Big enough to hold all this? And one for the modem. I didn't expect evidence with my Sunday lunch. What was it anyway? And Sophie – you couldn't give me the recipe? I've got a foodie coming to supper next week.'

‘You've heard of boeuf Stroganoff? Well, that was chicken Stroganoff. Or chicken Sophie. Any news,' I asked over my shoulder as I went for the bags and a jotter pad and pencil for the recipe, ‘from that bank?'

‘They make your friend Tony Rossiter look a positive mine of information. Damn it, I'm only trying to see if their telephone system could have been involved with a murder. You'd think they'd be pleased if we located any weaknesses in their security. So far there's no joy at all.'

‘Nothing? What about George's bassoon case? Any more on that?'

‘Only to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the mud came from the Music Centre site.'

‘What about the US connection? One bassoonist dies and his case is done over. What about the other bassoonists? Are they at risk?'

He looked awkward.

‘Or is Jools too busy trying to implicate Tony?' I rushed in. ‘I'm sure she told you what she overheard.'

‘So, to do him justice, did Rossiter.'

Thank God for that.

‘The trouble is,' he continued, ‘that while the members of the orchestra can largely alibi each other –'

‘Are you sure you can use “alibi” as a verb?'

‘– can provide alibis for each other, he's been travelling by car. I'll have to talk to him again.'

‘Do you have to do it publicly? Could you be reasonably low-key? We've been friends a long time, he and I.'

He shrugged a guarded agreement. I couldn't understand the expression on his face.

‘While we're on the subject of your friends,' he said, ‘I ought to tell you we might want to talk to the other bassoonists. Not necessarily as possible victims. I'm sorry.'

I saw it quite clearly, Jools's new case, standing in the corner of that expensive room. But then I saw the expression on her face that night in the pub: she was afraid, then, not guilty.

‘Have you seen her at the fitness centre yet?' I asked, feeling like Judas.

‘Been too groggy. But I suppose we could go down there this afternoon. I've got my gear in the car. God knows we've enough cholesterol to burn off.'

I'd hoped to wallow in it a bit longer. But then I thought of another reason to go to the centre. I'd give in very gracefully if he pressed me. Even if I still drew the line at a leotard.

It seemed something of a contradiction to drive to a fitness centre, but clearly he was still revelling in his new car, so I played along. Until he said, rather too casually, ‘I gather you saw Mayou yesterday.'

‘Twice, actually,' I said, truthfully but with the intention, of course, of confusing him. And then I relented. ‘At rehearsal, of course, and then in the afternoon. I'm sure Tina's told you. He and Jools were having a row, but I was far too far away to lip-read.'

‘Can you really lip-read?'

‘A little. George taught me. Musicians aren't supposed to talk on stage, of course, but sometimes they need to communicate with each other. And it might come in useful in my old age.'

‘If you have one. Pity you weren't closer. I'd give my pension to know what they were quarrelling about.' Then he brightened. ‘But I'm sure you'll be able to find out on Tuesday.'

One poster at the fitness centre always dominates my thoughts.

DID YOU KNOW THERE ARE 620 MUSCLES IN YOUR BODY?

YOU WILL AFTER USING OUR EXERCISE PROGRAMME!

I pointed it out to Chris while I waited to introduce him to Dean, the instructor. Dean was happy to let him have a trial session, and was convinced by his expensive but battered trainers that he wouldn't do himself any harm. Chris made no effort to make our visit a social affair. He started off at the far end of the gym and worked steadily and privately on the rowing machine and the cycle. I needed to work on the parts of my body that needed most attention – the bits from the waist to the knee. There were a couple of birthing chairs – one for pushing your legs out against weights, another for pushing them in. The effect in both was rather like swimming on your back in thick custard. While I worked, I watched Chris. In general I subscribed to the theory that a slim body looks better than a fat one, and Chris was certainly slim. But he was so slender as to be scrawny, as if a layer of subcutaneous fat had been stripped off, for the benefit of anatomy students, to show all the cords and sinews. In other words, his was the sort of body that looked better clothed.