The Devlin Diary (11 page)

But he cannot dawdle here all day, dreaming. He has plenty enough work to keep him occupied already. As he turns away from the river, something in the water catches his eye. When he looks back, whatever it was is already lost, pulled under by the river’s vortices. Strange, but he thought he’d seen a woman’s dress—no, not a dress but a woman. A young woman, her inert body supple as a rag doll in the river’s rolling current. He stares hard through his spectacles. It was just a dress, he decides. Or perhaps it was a figment of his imagination.

No, there it is again. He gasps and points. “Thomas, look.”

Below, a woman’s body washes up against the bridge piling nearest the riverbank. The current traps her there, wrapping her lifeless form around the narrow support like a horseshoe, hands stretched above her head as if trying to touch her toes. Thomas bolts down the stairs, intent on rescue. As he wades into the shallows under the bridge, others too spy the body in the river and rush to his aid. Two men help him drag her out of the water and onto the muddy riverbank. By the time Ravenscroft makes his way over, a small crowd has gathered; they stand in a circle around the body. Thomas rolls her onto her back. Her vacant eyes stare blankly up to the sky. She is soiled by the filth of the river, but the knife wounds in her chest and the terrible gash across the base of her throat are unmistakable. From the crowd, an outcry arises that sounds to Ravenscroft’s ears like the noise made by a flock of seabirds, and everyone begins talking at once. Through the babble of voices he hears a woman’s sorrowful twitter and sigh. “Why, it’s Jenny Dorset,” he hears her say, her voice breaking. “It’s little Jenny Dorset.”

Second week of Michaelmas term

“A
SWOT
,” D
EREK
Goodman said good-naturedly, “is a nerd who’s always studying. A
git
is an annoying idiot, and a
boffin
is a geek—usually the sort who works with test tubes or calculators, but if you spend too much time in the library you could be taken for a boffin.” He took a sip from his pint of Guinness. “Any other English slang words you care to know?”

“That’ll do for now,” Claire said, smiling. They sat in the Eagle Pub at a window table overlooking St. Bene’t’s church, built before the Normans invaded England. A few weathered gravestones rose up from the lush, grassy churchyard at odd angles, like crooked teeth.

“Too bad. I was hoping to impress you with my vocab. When I was fourteen, we moved back to England after being away for some years, and I could hardly understand what people were saying. So I compiled a comprehensive list of slang words, from
oxters
—which are armpits, by the way—to
wellied,
which can mean ‘drunk’ or ‘wearing enormous gumboots.’ I was definitely a swot—and a boffin, too, I imagine.”

Claire laughed. She hadn’t imagined that someone as accomplished and intelligent as Derek Goodman could also be so down-to-earth and funny. She liked his self-deprecating humor, and he seemed more
vulnerable than she would have thought from their first meeting. But maybe her first impressions had had more to do with her own prejudice about extraordinarily handsome men—that they were facile, selfish, shallow—than they had with reality. Wasn’t that the kind of prejudice pretty women always faced? It wasn’t fair or open-minded, two traits on which she prided herself. It was clear that Derek Goodman’s extroverted charm came naturally to him, and his looks were only one part of the whole attractive package.

“You didn’t grow up in England?”

“Not entirely. My father was a diplomat. We lived in eight different countries before my brother and I turned ten. Mostly European countries, East and West. Well, except for the year when my father had a falling out with the prime minister, and we were sent to Papua New Guinea.” His startling blue eyes met Claire’s. “I know what it’s like to be an outsider in a foreign place,” he said. “It’s not easy being the new kid here, is it?”

“Not always, no,” Claire said. She was too proud to say it, but to herself Claire admitted that she’d been lonely. If it hadn’t been for Hoddy’s company, she would have had no one to talk to. No peers, anyway. “Besides Dr. Humphries-Todd, you’re practically the only person who’s been friendly to me.”

Derek burst out laughing. Claire watched him, slightly wounded.

“Sorry, I’m not laughing at you,” he explained. “It’s just that everyone makes the same mistake. I certainly did. When I first came up to Cambridge I thought, ‘What a lovely little college town. So quaint, so charming.’ Which it is, on the surface, but don’t let it fool you. Underneath, Cambridge is a university town full of scheming academics. It’s a hotbed of rivalries, jealousies, grudges, resentments, paranoia, backstabbing, lust, greed, and envy, with the occasional bit of arse-kissing thrown in. But what am I saying? I’m going to scare you away before you’ve had a chance to unpack your suitcases.” He laughed again, then assumed a mock-serious expression. “Welcome to Cambridge, Dr. Donovan,” he said gravely. “You’re going to love it here.”

They shared a pleasant pub dinner while learning a bit about each other’s pasts. Derek Goodman’s was by far the more fascinating of the two. With his diplomat father, he’d lived in twelve different countries by the time he was fourteen. He spoke eight languages, he said, then amended that number to seven and a half, as his “Serbo-Croatian wasn’t really up to scratch.” He brushed off his two books lightly, saying they’d come about simply because once he found a subject that interested him, he found it difficult to shut up about it. He made writing sound as if it were as effortless as breathing. Her dissertation had required considerably more exertion than that, Claire said.

“I heard you pulled off quite a coup in Venice,” he remarked. “Gave Andrew Kent’s lecture for him.”

“It wasn’t like that. He asked me to speak in his stead.”

“You must have done something right or he wouldn’t have asked, and you wouldn’t be here.” Derek shook his head, smiling. “I wish I had been there—in Venice, I mean. I would have loved to have seen Andy upstaged.” He caught the waiter’s eye and gestured for another round of beers. “And now? Are you working on a paper?”

Claire related the events of her day: how she had pursued an idea about women artists and then discovered what looked like a private diary instead.

“Written in code?” Derek asked, intrigued. “Do you have any idea who wrote it, or what it’s about?”

“Not at all, I’m afraid.”

“Did you have it copied?”

“No, but I copied some of it by hand. I thought that if I could decipher it, I could use it as the basis for a paper on encryption.”

“Not a bad idea,” Derek mused. “No, wait—I think I saw an article about something similar in
Past and Present
not long ago. I believe it was about coded communications in the seventeenth century. That’s right, it was written by that wanker Charles Buford over at St. John’s. By the way, just so you know, Trinity and St. John’s have a rivalry that goes back about five hundred years. You shouldn’t have anything to do with them.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone at St. John’s is a wanker, that’s why,” Derek said as if it had been self-evident. “I’m sorry to be the one to break the bad news, but I think your idea for a paper has been done already. You may want to reconsider.” He frowned at the look of disappointment on Claire’s face. “Sorry, didn’t mean to take the wind out of your sails. But better to find out sooner rather than later.”

“Yes.”

“If there’s any way I can help…”

“Would you mind taking a look at it?” If Derek was familiar with this sort of code, she might save herself some time.

“Not at all.”

Claire opened her notebook and handed it to him. “I tried to follow the letterforms as faithfully as I could. I suppose I should have had it copied, but—”

“You didn’t want to share your discovery?”

“I suppose that sounds pretty naive.”

“It’s perfectly understandable.”

Claire contentedly watched him pore over her notes. This was exactly the sort of moment she’d come to Cambridge for: to work with other historians who loved history as much as she did. She’d imagined Andrew Kent sitting in the chair opposite hers, but Derek Goodman was an excellent substitute. “Have you ever seen writing like that before?” she asked.

“No, it’s new to me.” He gave the notebook back to Claire. “I will warn you not to get your hopes up too much, however. Things like this have a way of turning out to be more prosaic than they first appear. This could simply be notes from a church sermon or even someone’s laundry list. The collections in the Wren have been around a long time. Most things of import were documented long ago. That’s why you don’t see too many other fellows in there.”

The evening air was cool and misty as Claire and Derek Goodman walked back to Trinity. “There was a graduate student in the Wren Library today,” Claire mentioned as they passed through the college’s main gate. “She left right after I arrived. I worried that I’d done something to upset her.”

“Lots of frizzy brown hair and very baggy clothes?”

“Yes.”

“Rosamond Mercy. Don’t take her behavior personally. She’s like that all the time. She’s working on her PhD and…well,
neurasthenic
is the nicest word for it, I suppose. She’s bright, but she hasn’t got much of a personality. Rosamond Mousy, I call her.”

They walked into New Court and crossed to G staircase. Claire stopped just inside the arched doorway. “I had a very nice evening,” she said.

“May I walk you to your door?”

“Not tonight, Dr. Goodman.”

“Dr. Goodman? Let’s dispense with that formality, at least.”

“Derek,” Claire said, “as you pointed out earlier, I’m new here. Which is a very good reason to be even more circumspect than I might normally be.” She’d also had two and a half beers, about one and a half over her limit. It wasn’t only that she wasn’t ready to trust him; she didn’t completely trust herself, under the circumstances.

“I must admit I’m terribly disappointed,” Derek replied. “You have a lovely set.” The gleam in his eyes underscored the double entendre.

He was being naughty, as the English might say, but he was much too cute for her to complain about it. Claire smiled instead. “Did you really expect to get invited upstairs with a line like that?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think it would hurt to try.” He moved closer. “Claire, I just want you to know that I know what it’s like to be new here. If you ever need help with anything, anything at all, I hope you won’t hesitate to ask me.” Derek wasn’t smiling anymore. His blue eyes focused on hers. “I don’t make this offer to just anyone. But when we met I felt we had this instant connection.”

He was going to kiss her. Claire knew it at least three long, breathless seconds before he glanced down at her mouth and moved in for the kill, and she didn’t stop him. Why didn’t she stop him? Perhaps because she’d had one and a half beers too many. Or perhaps because Derek Goodman was handsome, brilliant, and completely irresistible. He was also, Claire discovered soon after his lips touched hers and his tongue began gently exploring, a front-runner for the title of World’s
Best Kisser. For a while she was aware of nothing but the sensation of his mouth on hers. In the remote region of her mind still capable of logical thought, she wondered how long it had been since she’d kissed a man.
Too long
was the most accurate answer she could come up with. Then one of his hands slid south from her waist and the other began moving north toward her—

“Derek.”

At the sound of the man’s voice, low and accusatory, they jumped away from each other. Andrew Kent stood just outside the archway.

“What the hell are you doing, Derek?”

“We were just chatting.” He raised both hands in the air in an attitude of supreme innocence, a suspect without a weapon.

“You weren’t just chatting.” Although Andrew seemed in complete self-control, Claire could see that he was furious. It was evident in his perfectly straight shoulders that looked broad enough to burst through his Burberry coat, evident in his voice, and, most especially, evident in the way he avoided looking at Claire. Above the stark white collar of his shirt, two spots of color blazed brightly across his cheeks. She got the distinct feeling that Derek was only one flippant remark away from being grabbed by the throat and dragged out onto the lawn. “Dr. Donovan is a new fellow, and you’ve no right putting the moves on her. You know the rules.”

“She’s not really a fellow.” Derek had overcome his initial surprise and now just seemed irritated.

“The rules still apply.”

“Well, of course we must always follow the rules, even when they make no sense. Old stick-in-the-mud Andy.” Derek looked at Andrew with one eyebrow suspiciously raised. “And why were you coming ’round this time of night?”

“I was simply stopping by to make sure that Dr. Donovan had everything she needed, and so forth.”

“And so forth?” he insinuated.

“Grow up, Derek.” Claire had the distinct feeling that it wasn’t the first time the two men had had an argument like this. “By the way,” Andrew went on, now sounding more exasperated than angry, “Fiona
Flannigan has registered another complaint about you with the vice-master. You’ve got to stop calling her that ridiculous name.”

“Flush is upset? Oh, come on. You don’t take her seriously, do you?” Derek looked at Claire, his eyes shining with mischief. “Get this,” he said, barely able to restrain his laughter, “Fiona Flannigan is a history fellow at Clare College who’s writing an entire book on—how can I say this politely?—sewage.”

“It’s a book about the first public sanitation systems in London,” Andrew explained.

“Exactly,” Derek said. “It’s a book about shit.” He turned to Claire. “Everyone calls her Flush Flannigan.”

“You’ve got to stop it,” Andrew insisted. “The students look to you for an example. Even the freshers are starting to call her Dr. Flush. She doesn’t find it funny.”

“What do you expect me to do about that?” Derek shrugged, palms up. “Some people have no sense of humor.”

“Derek, if you don’t clean up your act, you’ll soon discover that even your brilliance will not save you. There’s only so much bad behavior the college will tolerate.”

Derek sighed. “Andy, you are such a joy-killer.”

“I’ll walk you back to your set,” Andrew said to Derek. It wasn’t an offer; it was a command.

“Good night, Dr. Donovan.” Derek took her hand and kissed it lightly. “Thank you for a lovely evening.”

Andrew’s expression was grim as Derek ducked past him. Andrew glanced once, briefly and inscrutably, at Claire.

And then he turned and walked away.