The Bursar's Wife (33 page)

“What the hell is going on here, George?” Brampton said, her brow furrowed with worry. Quintin was reaching for the buzzer that summoned a nurse. He’d be lucky if he got a response on a Sunday with all the staff cuts. I looked at Brampton.

“I bet you a high-table college dinner that if you checked the back seat of Trisha’s convertible you might find a hair or even some fibres that match our American friend’s tailor-made trousers.”

“Why on earth would she want to do that?” Quintin shouted.

I shouted back: “You’re forgetting, Boyd, your compulsion to film every fucking thing you do.”

There was a silence like the sort experienced in the seconds after an explosion. Brampton was staring at Quintin with disbelief.

“I gave her what she wanted, that’s all. It was the natural conclusion,” he said, as if explaining why he’d given someone too much cake and they’d been sick.

“You filmed it,” Brampton said to herself. “You bloody filmed it.”

“Where is it?” Stubbing asked. I picked up the carrier bag with the camcorder inside it and handed it to her.

“Everything is on there, the critical bits are filmed by his sidekick Kevin. Try to make sure this one doesn’t get damaged or wiped.”

She opened the bag and smiled, then showed it to Brampton, who made to take it from her. Stubbing pulled it back and looked askance at Brampton, who nodded in resignation.

* * *

I left as Stubbing was formally detaining Quintin Boyd as a suspect in the murder of Trisha Greene.

STUBBING ARRIVED THE NEXT MORNING, EARLY, HER HAIR
bound tighter than ever. She followed me – without mentioning my pyjamas – into the kitchen where I sat at the table. I poured her some coffee, yawning.

It was only after she’d added two sugars to her mug and stirred it to buggery that she spoke. She was still standing.

“I suppose I should thank you,” she said.

“Consider us even.”

She smiled. “Do you want to press charges against little Kevin?”

“I don’t think so. Besides, he’s got enough heat without me wasting my time on him.”

She nodded. “That’s true enough, plus he’s got form. He’s been singing like a canary since I showed him the video.” She sniggered. “He was just following orders, apparently.”

I sipped my coffee. “Have you seen footage like that before?”

She sat down opposite and looked at her mug. “I’ve seen some pretty sick stuff, mainly with kiddies, but this is disturbing in a different way. It’s like he lost it at the end and wanted to see how far he could go.”

I didn’t agree with Stubbing’s evaluation of the video. All I’d seen was the concentrated hate and effort on Quintin’s face while he was doing it, then the relief and pleasure when he’d finished. He’d collapsed in the back seat, panting, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d smoked a cigarette then had a nap, except that the runt, realising what he’d just filmed, had called out to his boss, “Mr Boyd, what the fuck have you done? Mr Boyd? Fuck.” He’d put the camera down on the bonnet of the car without switching it off, and it had desperately tried to autofocus on the windscreen and Trisha’s just-dead face at the same time. The face that had kept me awake all night. Then you could hear the runt dragging Quintin from the back seat, trying to pull him from his trancelike state, all the while grunting and swearing with the effort. Then he’d picked up the camera and it had gone dead.

We sat for a bit, drinking our coffee, then Stubbing got to why she was here.

“So, George, anything to say about all the DVDs and tapes cooked in the arsehole’s flat, not to mention some missing hard drives?” She was oddly calm, perhaps realising the futility of her task.

“Not really,” I said, sipping my drink. “He must have done it himself when he knew you were onto him.”

“Don’t try and give me a warm feeling by pissing down my leg, George. You’re not going to hand over the hard discs you took from there?”

“What hard discs?” She put her mug on the table.

“So if I get the ferrets in here to rip the place apart they’re not going to find anything?”

“Not a sausage.” She raised her thin eyebrows.

“Was it something to do with Sylvia?”

I weighed up the option of stonewalling against telling the truth and hoping I touched some human streak of decency in Stubbing.

“He did have something that belonged to Sylvia. It has nothing to do with Trisha.”

“And because you have a hankering for posh quim you removed any possible copy of it on Quintin’s hard drive, thinking she might be grateful enough to throw a desperate dog a bone.”

I looked impassively at her over my cup.

“Women like that don’t put out for blokes like you,” she said.

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“And Brampton, how was she involved?”

“Like I told you, they were all at university together, watched a bit of porn, that’s all.” Stubbing sneered as only she can and made a noise like an asthmatic pug.

“She seemed bloody relieved that Quintin’s computer had no data on it.” That didn’t surprise me. She must be as relieved as Sylvia, especially since disembowelling his computer, which was running as a server, meant there’d be nothing available online anymore, something Sylvia seemed blissfully unaware of. But I wasn’t expecting a thank you card from Brampton.

“What’s going to happen to her?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean about her wiping the memory stick. She did do it, didn’t she?”

“Well, all I know for certain is that she was the first person to get her hands on it. Waylaid young Turner as he was taking it down to the tech unit, saying she would take it down herself. It didn’t get there until last thing Friday and she told them it wasn’t a priority.” She shrugged. “But I can’t prove anything. I mean maybe the techies could show that the files were deleted, but to be honest she probably just gave them an identical brand-new one.” Her jaw tensed and her eyes went hard like marbles. “And of course anything he might have had on her has conveniently been destroyed.” She mimicked something disappearing with her hands and shook her head in disgust, not looking at me. I said nothing, waiting for her to calm down.

“Maybe she’ll move on,” I said. She looked up.

“She’ll probably be promoted out the way,” she said. “That’s what usually happens.”

“Will you apply for her job if she does?”

She made another pug-like noise and took a deep drink of coffee. She studied my face and I raised my eyebrows – I’d seen that look before; it resulted in putting on a condom. But to my relief she must have thought better of it because she sighed and slowly got up. She put out her hand and I took it.

“It’s been a pleasure working with you, Vicky.”

“Likewise, George.”

* * *

Midmorning Monday Sylvia came into the office. After writing a cheque she sat back in her chair.

“To be honest I didn’t think he was capable of murder,” Sylvia said. “Manipulation and abuse, yes, but this?” She was a lot more relaxed than when she was last here. No unnecessary sunglasses, no twiddling of rings. She wore a black trouser suit that had been tailored with great care and sat up straight with her hands flat on a black leather portfolio resting on her thighs. “Judith says the whole thing was filmed?”

“Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“At one point I wondered what had made him the person he is.”

“Probably something to do with his mother,” I said, then wished I hadn’t because something flickered across her face.

“Mothers are blamed for most things,” she said.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

She waved my apology away. “He wasn’t all bad, you know, he used to contribute generously to charity.”

I declined to comment and she had the grace to look embarrassed. “I must say you don’t seem surprised by any of this.”

“Nothing surprises me,” I said.

“Really? Even Lucy?”

“Well, maybe that,” I granted. I gazed into her turquoise eyes but they looked less alluring to me than two weeks ago. And I no longer fantasised about her whispering into my ear.

“I want to thank you, George, for what you’ve done.”

I shrugged in an it’s-all-in-a-day’s-work manner.

“No, Judith told me that… his hard drives had disappeared and someone had destroyed all the recordings?”

I nodded.

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” she said, in a way that suggested she hadn’t forgotten at all. She unzipped the portfolio and took out two white envelopes. She handed me one with my name on it.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the DNA results that Quintin had sent to Elliot. I thought you might want to see them.” I put it unopened in my jacket pocket; I didn’t want Sandra opening it. I hadn’t told her about Lucy and didn’t really want to. She’d been trying to pump me on the phone the night before, but I’d put her off, accepting an invitation to eat with her and the boys that night when I promised to reveal all.

“When do you plan to tell Lucy?”

“I don’t know. She’s taking some time out so we’re going away. I might tell her then.” She half-smiled and her fingers moved to her rings – she was getting cold feet about telling Lucy the truth. I myself had given it more thought since yesterday morning and changed my mind, if for no other reason than Lucy could still hear it from Quintin from behind bars. If of course they kept him there – he would no doubt have a team of lawyers who would prove it was Trisha’s fault she had died – a woman can’t enjoy sex for its own sake without being judged.

“Do you still think I shouldn’t tell her?” Sylvia was asking.

“It doesn’t really matter what I think,” I said.

“Yesterday you made a passionate plea for me to tell her nothing.” She raised her eyebrows questioningly. They looked unnatural in their arched perfection.

“I don’t know. What you said made sense, about the burden of carrying around secrets. I don’t mean about the video, or how she was conceived – in a way that’s your business. But the question of who fathered her is her business. What I’m trying to say, not very well, is that if you’re carrying a secret about someone else, someone you love, then I think they have a right to know. Otherwise your relationship is built on a pretence.” I was spouting stuff I wasn’t sure I believed but I was worried she had lanced one boil only to cover another in makeup.

“I still need to think about it.”

“Where are you going?”

“Pardon?”

“Next week, where are you going?”

“Somewhere we’ve never been before.”

“An excellent choice, if I may say so.” We both smiled and I gazed meaningfully at the other envelope in her hand.

She cottoned on and handed it over. It had Jason’s name on it.

“I know I’ve paid you but this is specifically for Jason. Erm, cash, compensation for his injuries.”

“That’s really not necessary,” I said, taking it from her.

“No, but it would make me feel better.” I shrugged and we stood up. I walked her to the door.

“He and Lucy have grown quite fond of each other,” I said. She stopped and turned to me, putting her hand on the door to stop me opening it.

“In light of his relationship to you, and yours to me, I’m not sure it’s healthy for him and Lucy to, erm, maintain contact, do you?”

I thought it extremely healthy but I knew what she was really saying. She’d made it clear when she’d given me money for Jason: her daughter was not going to date someone she had employed.

“They are adults,” I said, out of pigheadedness. She nodded, but we were no longer having a discussion.

“We’ll be moving away from Cambridge when we come back; obviously we can’t continue to live at the college and I think a fresh start would be good for both of us. I’ll be discussing it with Lucy when we’re away, but I’ve already made enquiries this morning about getting her transferred out of Emma.” It sounded like they’d be having a fun mother and daughter trip, and I felt sorry for Lucy; in one respect nothing had changed for her, except she had lost her real father because of her biological one.

* * *

After Sylvia was gone Sandra rang and I reassured her I hadn’t forgotten about dinner. I left the office, passing Nina in the hall, who blanked me. Fuck her, or not, as the case now seemed to be. I drove home and mooched about. I tried to set up a new puzzle on the chessboard but the heavy pieces just reminded me of my father, and his reverence of the Armenian chess grandmaster Tigran Petrosian. I packed the chess pieces into their felt-lined box with the sliding lid and took them and the board to the car, which I pointed towards Cottenham. I’d have to face him at some point.

He wasn’t in his room. I followed the sound of the decrepit piano to the day room – he was there with the other residents. Someone was playing Gershwin songs quite badly, but still a pleasant contrast to the TV being on full blast. I saw Megan, the care assistant, standing behind my seated father, her hands on his shoulders. Unseen, I went back to his room where I put the chessboard on the small table used for flowers. I set up the pieces and left before the piano playing stopped.

* * *

Back home I remembered my invitation to dinner at Sandra’s. But I didn’t feel I could face her, especially not to go over everything again. I rang to tell her I was knackered and needed some rest. I could hear the disappointment in her voice as she told me to take it easy. I could have rung Kamal and asked him to come round but hesitated; the truth was that I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone just yet. I would have to at some point, if only to stop it eating away at me, like it had eaten away at Sylvia.

I fiddled around on the computer but decided it wasn’t what I needed. I didn’t know what I needed, just what I
didn’t
need. I knew I was hungry, but a search of the kitchen revealed nothing. I decided I needed to go out, out of my father’s house.

* * *

I drove round Cambridge for a bit, finding myself on the road to Morley College. I stopped at the McDonald’s.

Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays Cathy worked there, and it was a Monday. I was hungry, after all.

THE COUNTY COUNCIL PUT GATES ACROSS THE ENTRANCE TO
the Magog Downs car park a few weeks later, so no one could have sex in cars there, not after hours anyway. I guess they just found somewhere else.