Matricide at St. Martha's (26 page)

‘The way the word centre is spelt.’

‘Oh, it’s spelt wrong, I saw that, but everyone’s illiterate these days.’

‘It’s the American spelling, sir — “center”.

‘Well, so if it is, that’s a coincidence. It’s just a spelling mistake.’

‘It’s not a common spelling mistake, sir. It’s much more likely to be a cultural slip by an American.’

‘You mean that black girl sent it herself?’

‘I can’t think it very likely that she set out to frame herself.’

‘Maybe she wanted to be a martyr, be able to sue us afterwards. You know what Americans are like.’

‘Maybe somebody else wanted to make a martyr of her. Someone like Sandra Murphy; she’s American too.’

‘I know that, I know that.’ Romford was grumpy. ‘Oh well, I suppose we’d better have her in again and ask her how she spells “centre”.’

‘I don’t think that would get us very far, sir. If I might suggest…’

There was a knock on the door.

‘Come in,’ called Romford.

Amiss’s head appeared. ‘May I interrupt you for a moment, Inspector?’

‘Certainly.’ Romford sounded almost cordial.

‘I thought you’d like to know that the Bursar has become Mistress and that she’ll be making a speech to the whole college in the library in ten minutes. I think you might find it interesting.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Romford. ‘We’re trying to solve a murder here, not get involved with what all these women are up to.’

‘I think it might have some bearing, Inspector. You see, Bridget Holdness and Sandra have lost a campaign they expected to win and I think it’s just possible there might be a little bit of a breach between them. Disappointment can cause allies to fall out.’

Romford chewed that over. ‘You mean they might shop each other?’ His brows knitted. ‘I suppose we’d better bring them in, then.’

‘Forgive my meddling,’ said Amiss hastily, ‘but they are likely to be in even lower spirits after the meeting and it really is in any case very important for college morale that they should be at it.’

‘Oh, all right, we’ll go to the meeting. Come on, Pooley.’

‘I’ll be with you in a second, sir. I just have to make a quick call to my hotel to pick up messages.’

Failing to think of any good reason to object to this, Romford nodded curtly and followed Amiss out. Furtively closing the door, Pooley dialled Superintendent Hardiman.

There was a full turn out. Even Greasy Joan was there, apron removed for the occasion to reveal an impressive, if sagging, cleavage protruding from a fake leopardskin close-fitting tracksuit. Bridget Holdness played her part exactly as directed. Pausing only to offer congratulations, she stood back. Jack Troutbeck strode forward carrying a chair on which she climbed. ‘Can you all hear me?’ she bellowed.

‘I’d be surprised if they can’t hear her in Alabama,’ whispered Mary Lou to Amiss under cover of the shouts of ‘Yes’.

‘I want to read you the obituary of a fine woman, of whom we should all be proud.’

She read brilliantly, rather to Amiss’s surprise – the timing perfect, the voice rich, vibrant and full of controlled emotion. What had been poignant read out by Crowley was elegiac read by Jack Troutbeck. When she had finished there was an absolute silence.

The new Mistress folded the newspaper and stuck it in her pocket. She looked slowly around her audience. ‘Colleagues, friends, sisters and brothers, we have a simple choice.

‘As you all should know, St Martha’s was set up by a man who believed that women were inferior creatures who might be driven insane by too much intellectual effort: if he were alive now he would be saying “I told you so”. Yet despite his vision of womanhood restricted, protected, cosseted, forced down the so-called womanly paths, the women in this college proved him wrong. They were self-reliant, honourable, hard-working, proud of each other’s achievements, supportive of each other’s endeavours and devoted to their students.

‘If, under them, St Martha’s lacked glamour, it never lacked integrity. Generations of its students, among whom I am proud to number myself, were sent into the world to play a useful part and behave honourably. We were taught that to die with one’s self-respect intact was more important than to be laden with the honours and baubles of the self-seeker and materialist.

‘Yet recently as a college we began to lose our collective sense and to experience a fragmentation of our historical common purpose. Factions developed. I will not deny that many of those anxious to take St Martha’s in a new direction were motivated by idealism, though I cannot pretend that I thought all were. I freely admit that on occasion I may have been less than generous in my assumptions, tactful in my speech or subtle in my battle against radical change.

‘At the root of the dispute over the future of St Martha’s were two opposing views of the nature of women and the importance of sexual proclivities. On the latter, I believed, and I still do, that sex is a private matter and that the nature of one’s sexuality or sexual appetites should not dominate one’s thinking. My generation of Fellows was, I believe, right in tolerating but not highlighting each other’s sexual inclinations; we all had the courtesy to keep the issue out of the public domain.’

‘
You
didn’t,’ called out a voice from the back. The Mistress was unabashed. ‘Until the other day, I did. You must view my recent outspoken comments as uncharacteristic and a consequence of an unhappy struggle between colleagues which is, I believe, now over.

‘That issues of sexuality became such a divisive force within the college was serious enough. What was much worse was the attempt to encourage students in a new, dangerous and joyless direction. For my generation, female liberation was about casting off the shackles imposed on women by society and rejoicing in the freedom to be human beings. It is therefore with alarm that we have seen the trend on the campuses of America, and even here, towards the pursuit of victimhood: I believe our job is to escape it, not pursue it.

‘I want St Martha’s to be a college in which liberated women follow their stars, not one in which feeble throw-backs to the Victorian era whimper about hurt feelings, bitch about political correctness and act like frightened virgins if a man touches them without a pre-witnessed contract. We must take control of our lives. In the world I envisage, anyone attempting a date rape will be dealt with by a strong right hook.’

Recognizing that the Mistress showed signs of going over the top and losing her audience, Amiss nudged Mary Lou and whispered. ‘Three cheers for the new Mistress,’ she shouted. ‘Hip, hip…’

‘Hooray’, yelled Amiss and several colleagues. ‘Hip, hip… ’ Slightly uncertainly and then with a gathering enthusiasm, the audience responded. Amiss was delighted to see Pippa shouting loudly. The cheering continued for several minutes. The Mistress, flushed and delighted with herself, bowed in acknowledgement, waved furiously, descended from her chair and finally jumped up and down in enthusiasm, both fists clenched in the air in the victory salute. Then abruptly she wheeled round and disappeared through the nearest door. Amiss and Mary Lou followed.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘How very interesting. And where were you last night?’

As she began to tell him, Pooley and Superintendent Hardiman closed in on Bridget Holdness.

29

«
^
»

Hardiman had Sandra consigned to a nearby room under the friendly gaze of DC McMenamin. Flanked by Romford and Pooley, he faced Bridget Holdness across the table. ‘There are only two suspects with convincing motives who do not have rock-solid alibis.’ It was a lie, but he told it convincingly. ‘And those two are you and your colleague, Dr Murphy.’

‘But we do have alibis.’

There was an unfamiliar note of uncertainty in her voice.

‘Very leaky alibis. Let me remind you, Dr Holdness, there were a dozen discrepancies from the time at which you went to bed, the sexual practices in which you indulged, the order of events…’

‘Yes, yes, yes, I know. It’s easy to muddle up such matters.’

‘In any case, the alibis make no difference, for it is clear that you and Dr Murphy are involved in a conspiracy centring round your desire to gain control of this institution and the Alice Toon bequest. You wanted to be Mistress and most of your colleagues testify to your ruthlessness in the pursuit of your objectives. You and your co-conspirator appear to be most unpleasant pieces of work; I would go further – you are double murderers.’

‘We’re not.’

He ignored her. ‘And contemptibly, you attempted to pin the blame on a young woman whom you pretended to befriend.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Dr Denslow. You chose a murder weapon which was her property, planted drugs in her room and tipped off the police with an anonymous letter.’

‘I never even heard about any anonymous letter.’

Hardiman handed it to her. She read it twice and pushed it back. ‘Is it really true that all the other suspects are out of the running?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

She rested her forehead on her hands. No one spoke. After a couple of minutes she looked up. ‘All right then. Here goes.’

Half an hour later, Pooley replaced McMenamin and sent him back to guard Bridget Holdness. Sandra was scowling. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Superintendent Hardiman and Inspector Romford will be along in a moment to ask you some questions.’

‘This is persecution. You’re picking on me because I’m foreign.’

Pooley said nothing.

‘I’ll sue for wrongful arrest.’

‘As you wish, ma’am.’

She got up as the others entered. ‘You’ve no right to keep me here like this.’

‘Shut up,’ said Hardiman. ‘I’m charging you with the wilful murders of Dame Maud Theodosia Buckbarrow and Dr Deborah Windlesham and the attempted murder of Miss Ida Troutbeck and I must warn you that…’

‘You can’t,’ she screamed, ‘I’ve got alibis.’

‘Not any more you don’t,’ said Hardiman. ‘Your mate Bridget has blown the gaff.’

It took the three of them and two reinforcements Hardiman had brought with him to subdue her, for she managed to produce a show of strength that would have impressed a Troutbeck. Finally handcuffed, she was removed to a police car. Hardiman tenderly mopped the scratch she had planted on his right cheek. ‘Jesus Christ.’

Romford looked at him sternly. ‘You are speaking about a friend of mine.’

Hardiman narrowed his eyes. ‘I warned you before, Romford. This time I’m going to fucking castrate you.’

‘Yippee!’ said the Mistress. She brandished the empty bottle in the air and shouted. ‘More champagne!’

A scurrying waiter disappeared to fulfil her command.

‘Mind you, young Pooley, it was about bloody time. Talk about making heavy weather of it…’

‘If Hardiman hadn’t come along, I don’t think we’d have resolved it unless Sandra had murdered every member of the College Council.’

‘I hope Hardiman gives Romford a pretty hard time,’ said Amiss.

‘I think he’s getting a choice between being hanged, drawn and quartered and being sent on secondment to the Falkland Islands.’

‘Let’s drink to the Falklands,’ said the Mistress. ‘He can convert the sheep. They’re about his intellectual level.’

They clinked their glasses gravely. More champagne arrived and was uncorked and the trio settled down to serious ordering.

‘Right,’ said the Mistress when they had a respite. ‘So what made the Head Bitch come across?’

‘Seeing the anonymous letter. She guessed it was Sandra.’

‘How?’

‘The Americanized spelling of “centre”. That’s what Romford had missed, needless to say, and I spotted.’

‘You mean Bridget jibbed at Sandra framing Mary Lou but not at her murdering a brace of dons?’

‘No, no. Don’t be silly, Robert. She didn’t believe that Sandra was a murderer because she didn’t want to believe that Sandra was a murderer, so she didn’t allow it as a possibility. Then the anonymous letter forced her to face facts. As she said when she came clean, it all suddenly fell into place.’

‘You’re making her sound rather like a human being.’

‘I wouldn’t go quite that far,’ said Pooley cautiously. ‘You, Jack, however, always alleged that she was pragmatic rather than principled.’

‘True, true, I did. And it’s the idealists that are really dangerous.’

Amiss fiddled with a bread roll. ‘You mean that Sandra believed all that crap but Bridget just used it for effect.’

‘She didn’t just believe it, she believed in it like a religion. She was as bad as Romford.’ Pooley checked himself. ‘What am I saying? At least Romford doesn’t murder people to bring them to Jesus. Sandra murdered to bring Jesus, i. e. Bridget, to power for the creation of a PC heaven in a dank corner of Cambridge.’

‘Heaven preserve me from idealists,’ said the Mistress, swilling her champagne. ‘Whoever they are and no matter how high-sounding their motives seem to be, they are usually in the business of gaining power for themselves or their own faction. It doesn’t matter if they call themselves National Socialists or Basque Separatists or Red Brigaders or IRA or whether they call it freedom, justice, democracy or power to the people or even flower power — what they really want is to control other people and bend them to their will.’

‘It seems a bit much to spill so much blood just to stop St Martha’s being insufficiently multicultural.’

‘You know bloody well that wasn’t what it was about. First you control language; then you control thought; then you send your evangelists forth to spread your dreary message.’

‘She must be mad.’

‘So Holdness charitably thinks.’

‘Now let me be clear about my colleagues,’ said the Mistress. ‘The alibis were completely false?’ She began on her venison.

‘Yes. Holdness thought it was perfectly sensible when Sandra suggested it, that they should cover up for each other in case the unjust cops pointed the finger at them because they were lesbian.’

‘Who did she think had done it?’

‘The attack on Jack she thought could be anyone, since she’s so annoying.’