Matricide at St. Martha's (13 page)

Sergeant Bunter’s face cleared. ‘You, then, madam, would be the unfortunate lady who was the victim of a vicious assault yesterday evening. Am I correct?’

‘Yes, yes. But that’s ancient history. You’ve got a stiff to deal with now.’

Her unladylike language drew a gulp from Bunter. He stood there irresolute. ‘Well, ma’am, me and my colleague are here to investigate that. This other regrettable event is a matter for those of my colleagues who will be following on. I would be grateful if you would accompany me to a location where I can note down the appropriate particulars. In the meantime, P. C. Atkins here can stand guard over the late Dame, and this other lady here, after giving him her name, can depart somewhere to recover her composure. Indeed, madam, if you would like yourself to visit the powder room and freshen up before we discuss the upsetting events of the past evening, that will be quite understood.’

‘Sergeant Bunter,’ said the Bursar in that tone of voice which normally presaged heavy irony, ‘it is kind of you to be so sensitive to our womanly feelings.’ He smirked. ‘But I think I have succeeded in conquering any remaining girlish squeamishness, so I’m staying here and I suggest you do the same. Why don’t you scrabble around a bit and look for clues.’

She plonked herself down and stretched out her legs. Looking covertly at Bunter, Amiss observed the fascinated stare elicited by the sight of the elasticized knicker legs that peeped out from below the tweed skirt and then incongruously gave way to thick woollen patterned stockings and heavy brogues, the tongue of one of which was standing upright and thus giving a startled look to the whole ensemble. This still life was broken by a shout from the young constable. ‘Sir, look, look!’

The Bursar scrambled to her feet with more vigour than elegance and the three of them raced around the vast bush to where the constable stood excitedly pointing at a ladder.

‘Look, sir. Burglars must have been trying to get in.’

‘I thought the problem we were concentrating on,’ said the Bursar, ‘was of someone getting out rather than someone getting in. What’s preoccupying me is how an eleven-stone woman could go through a window with sufficient force to carry her beyond normal jumping distance.’

‘The burglar might have thrown her,’ observed the sergeant sagely. ‘You’d be surprised at the sort of things villains do.’

‘Well, we’d better look for the world champion at caber-tossing then.’ She paused and took a second look at the ladder. ‘That’s ours. From the library. Now why would she go out the library window with a ladder?’

‘Maybe she was on it,’ suggested Amiss.

As they pondered this possibility, Miss Stamp came squeaking round the corner accompanied by a collection of uniformed and plain clothes policemen. The leader of the pack hurried forward. ‘Good morning, ma’am, Inspector Michael Romford.’

The Bursar bowed. ‘Jack Troutbeck,’ she said. ‘Bursar.’

‘The lady that was hit on the head with the gun last night,’ said Bunter helpfully.

‘Good heavens,’ said Romford. ‘You must still be in a state of shock. I think you’d better go in and lie down while we attend to matters here.’

She glowered at him. ‘Inspector, let me give you one word of advice. This may look like an establishment for the education of docile young ladies, but it is packed for the most part with battleaxes, harpies and thought police. It would be better for all of you if you gear yourselves up to expect Bette Davis on a bad night rather than Doris Day.’

She surveyed the gathering. ‘I am now going inside to have a large drink. Would you care to accompany me, Robert?’

As she strode off, Amiss began to sidle after her, hoping to escape notice. He was halted by Romford. ‘Well, well, if it isn’t Mr Amiss. What a surprise to see you yet again, sir.’

‘My pleasure, Inspector Romford. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must look after the Bursar. As you can see, she’s not very well.’ And he galloped away in pursuit.

15

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Can you believe it? Amiss wrote to Rachel. I’m lumbered with Inspector bloody Romford, the half-wit that fingered me as a murderer at the time I was actually acting as a copper’s nark and then turned up on a later occasion to screw up things at the Knightsbridge school. He’s the Bible-thumping, family values, moral majority asshole who made Ellis’s life a misery for ages. Fortunately, he got up Jim’s nose so much with his sanctimonious clucking and tut-tutting, not to speak of the way he used to draw in his breath with a shocked hiss any time anyone said anything that would not have passed muster in a roomful of Mormons, that he ruthlessly dispatched him to Stolen Vehicles, leading the whole of the division to celebrate mightily.

Unfortunately, he didn’t enjoy his new job. I learn from Ellis that in the true tradition of a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher, old Romford pined for the days of investigating exotic vice and grisly murders and eventually got himself transferred to the Cambridgeshire constabulary.

He is, you can imagine, going down big with Jack Troutbeck and Bridget Holdness. Indeed, if he stays around much longer, he may succeed in uniting the whole college against him. Being one of the boys, Jack doesn’t take very well to being treated like something out of a 1950s advertisement for washing powder; Romford is firmly of the ‘Ladies-God-bless-’em’ school of chauvinists.

Mind you, he’s had such a rough ride here already that he shows signs of moving to the ‘woman-as-sin’ position. Ever since Jack sported her ‘DYKE POWER’ badge, he has viewed her with salacious horror. He even had his young WPC transferred to other duties, presumably lest she become a victim of gang rape by the Fellows of St Martha’s.

There seems to be no one to control him. The local superintendent has rushed in and out a few times looking harassed, but he’s got a frightful double murder to deal with of the kind in which the Fens specialize. You must have read about the sort of thing often: swirling mists, severed heads, inarticulate locals and a lot of incest thrown in here and there. Romford’s chief inspector isn’t around either; apparently he’s off on some kind of course. Anyway, initially St Martha’s wasn’t given much priority because it wasn’t clearly a murder case, but it clearly is now.

Dame Maud, it emerges, was in the habit of ‘scooting’ on a ladder along the library shelves, sometimes at some speed, since the two books she most frequently consulted when checking references were the
Dictionary of National Biography
which was at the end nearest to the entrance and a book on Anglo-Saxon place names which was just beside the window. You know the kind of ladder I mean – one that is attached to grooves at strategic places on the bookshelves.

Where more cautious scholars used to push the ladder from one spot to another, the Mistress had the unexpectedly skittish habit of scooting it along at top speed, steadying it at the end with a combination of her foot and the force of the stoppers that prevent ladders from falling out of the grooves. This time there were no stoppers and Mistress and ladder sailed on through the window.

The key question is why were there no stoppers? It could hardly have been an accident that three vanished simultaneously without leaving a trace and it seems pretty unlikely that she removed them herself in order to commit suicide. If so, why wouldn’t they be in the library? Nor did she have a perverse or convoluted mind.

It could, of course, have been a practical joke that went badly wrong, but St Martha’s isn’t a practical-jokey sort of place and it would have taken an absolute cretin not to realize how dangerous it would be. No, it’s obvious to the meanest intelligence, even Romford’s, that someone was out to get Dame Maud.

Romford’s main problem is that the motives are completely beyond him. Trying to explain to him how passions could run high over theology lectureships as opposed to women’s studies is like trying to explain to a witch doctor the difference between penicillin and aspirin. Once he had grasped that women’s studies were not – as he thought – accomplishments of the kind possessed by old Francis Pusey (and you should have seen his face when he discovered that the Womanly Arts Fellow was male) but were somehow academic, he was lost.

He picked up from someone that there was tension over something called political correctness and asked Jack to explain what that meant. She defined it as: ‘an American fashion or indeed species of intimidation, to make us change our ways of speaking about people so that all savour is taken out of life’. She reported to me gleefully that this had not appeared to clarify matters.

Summoned in my turn and also not feeling particularly well-disposed towards Romford, I proffered the definition: “intellectual fascism applied to language”. He looked really miserable after that, but instead of having the sense to throw himself on my mercy, in which case I would have yielded and explained it all to him in pidgin (oops!) English, he started getting aggressive about what I was doing in the place anyway. Insofar as I can understand, the reason for Romford’s hostility to me is to do with notions of no smoke without fire: I’ve been in the proximity of a suspicious number of murders.

I have to admit to rather enjoying myself at present. I am, of course, sorry about poor old Maud Buckbarrow, but it was, after all, an absolutely splendid way for her to go. I have no idea at the moment what its effect on college politics is going to be, but I don’t think there’ll be a long remission in the war. Bridget Holdness has a nasty glint in her eye and Jack is going about the place with that preoccupied expression that means she’s thinking of further ways to scupper enemy plans. When she’s in that mood she’s totally uncommunicative, so, between coppers who won’t talk to me and a chief conspirator who keeps everything close to her formidable chest, I’m feeling at a bit of a loose end: I may have to seek solace again with Francis. I’m still worried about Jack but she stoutly refuses to believe she’s in any danger with a posse of policemen clumping around the place. I suppose she’s right; anyway you can’t guard someone against their will.

Now to the really important matters. What’s the news from Personnel? Are you being released back to London or am I fated to be a Foreign Office common-law widower for the rest of the year…?

‘Excuse me, sir, do you have a moment?’

‘Come in, Ellis.’

Chief Superintendent Jim Milton disentangled himself with relief from his snowstorm of paperwork and smiled welcomingly. ‘Sit down. I hope it’s about something more interesting than budgets.’ He felt pretty confident that it was; promotion had not removed from Pooley the look of quivering eagerness that overcame him when his imagination was aroused.

‘It’s Robert, sir. He’s been on from Cambridge.’

‘Cambridge?’

‘Don’t you remember? I told you the other night about what he was up to in that peculiar female college.’

‘Oh yes. Sorry, Ellis. Of course – the PC battleground. What’s happened?’

‘There’s been a murder of the Mistress and an attempted murder of the Bursar.’

‘How does Robert get himself involved in these things? It’s looking too much like coincidence. Maybe we were wrong about him and he really is a serial killer.’

‘He thinks that’s what Romford thinks.’

‘What do you mean, Romford?’

‘He’s in charge of the case.’

A smile of pure pleasure spread over Milton’s face as he remembered Romford’s many frightfulnesses. ‘Excellent casting. Just the man for this. Thanks, Ellis, you’ve brightened my morning.’

‘But, sir, what I was wondering was if there’s any way we can get involved?’

‘Of course there isn’t.’

‘But I wondered if I mightn’t be useful to them. As a Cambridge graduate, I mean.’

‘Ellis, we do not lend people round to other forces on flimsy pretexts like that.’

Milton always hated it when Pooley’s eager look gave way to disappointment. ‘I’m sorry, Ellis, but bureaucracies are bureaucracies and this is a bureaucracy. You’re going to have to get your kicks on this one vicariously from Robert, I’m afraid. Keep in touch with him and we’ll have a drink one night and you can fill me in. Now, we’d better both get back to whatever it is we’re being paid to do.’

He averted his eyes as Pooley trailed dejectedly out of the room.

It was at around five o’clock that afternoon that Milton’s curiosity got the better of him. On an impulse – and pausing only to fabricate a suitable enquiry – he rang his friend Superintendent Hardiman of the Cambridgeshire police.

‘I was just this very moment thinking of ringing you,’ said Hardiman. ‘First chance I’ve had all day. What did you want?’ He did not sound friendly.

‘Just a quick word about the drug ring that’s impinging on both our territories.’

‘Bugger that, I’ve no time at present to think of anything less serious than murder.’

‘Things bad?’

‘Fucking awful.’

‘Are you looking for help?’

‘I wasn’t going to ask for help. I was about to enquire what I had ever done to you that you should have unleashed on to me that buffoon Romford.’

‘Oh, he’s not so bad.’

‘Not so bad as what? I don’t mind him having no brains: I’m used to that. It’s the Holy Joe carry-on combined with his absolute misreading of everyone around him that drives me wild. You can completely rely on Romford to be wrong about colleagues, suspects and the lot. What I want to know is how the hell he got promoted. Was he a fucking freemason or something?’

‘Search me, Gordon. I always found that mysterious myself. He was already an inspector when I acquired him. And it’s no good blaming me. I didn’t know he was trying to transfer to Cambridgeshire.’

‘Well, he had good reports from you as well as from Stolen Vehicles.’

‘Not exactly good,’ said Milton rather guiltily. ‘More a case of being economical with the truth. How the hell else do you ever get anyone transferred? Anyway, what’s he doing at the moment?’

‘Making a total bollocks of a murder in some daft local women’s college. Mind you,’ said Hardiman grudgingly, ‘it’s not easy. I’ve been in there a couple of times to see those birds and all I’ve grasped is that lots of them hate each other like poison.’