Murder Is Academic (6 page)

I continued to watch from the window, whisky glass in hand, but I wasn't seeing the rippling water any more. I was seeing a winter's day in Sheffield over five years ago, one of those days when snow shuts down the city early. I remembered every detail of that journey home: big, watery flakes of snow melting as soon as they hit the windscreen; Billie Holliday on the cassette player.
‘I've got a man, crazy ‘bout me',
she sang with that catch in her voice,
‘He's funny that way…'
The narrow road that led down to our house was steep. I had skidded as I turned into it. The car easily recovered, but the temporary loss of control gave me a jolt. I crept down the hill in first gear, turned into the driveway and parked. I struggled out of the car with my briefcase. Bill Bailey, little more than a kitten then, was sitting on the doorstep, mewing piteously, his long hair plastered to his body. I scooped him up with one arm and felt him shivering. I fumbled with my key in the lock, my fingers already feeling numb. The lock clicked and I began to push the door open. It met resistance and I was puzzled for a moment until I realized that the chain was on. Then I was puzzled again. It was usually only put on at night, it was part of Simon's locking-up routine. I put my finger on the doorbell and kept it there. When there was no answer to the second ring, I trudged round to the back door and let myself in. I dumped my briefcase on the kitchen floor and went into the hall. I heard movement upstairs and looked up to see Simon at our bedroom door, wearing a towel, as though he'd just got out of the shower. So that was why he hadn't answered the door. My face broke into a smile that froze when it met the lack of response on his. It was as though I had caught a stranger's eye in the street. Then he took charge of himself and made an effort to override the shock of seeing me, but it was too late. At the very moment that he reached behind him to close the bedroom door, Samantha appeared at his shoulder. She was wearing my dressing-gown.

The marriage had limped on a little longer, but really it had ended at that moment when I stood looking up the stairs. Something had been lost that could never be recovered. A few months later, I had been offered the job in Cambridge and I had accepted.

A roll of distant thunder brought me back to the present. I thought of handing Lucy's letters over to Malcolm, of his face, at first uncomprehending, then pale and stricken. ‘I've been a lucky man, I mustn't ever forget that,' I heard him say. I thought of the letters being produced at the inquest.

I took a box of matches from the shelf by the hob and went upstairs to the big study and sitting-room that takes up the first floor. I went over to the hearth and opened the heavy iron door of the wood-burning stove. I put the letters in a rough heap inside and set a match to them. I sat down on the tiled hearth and watched the tiny flames eat round the end of an envelope. Where they touched the paper, the edges of the flames were a clear azure blue. Then with a rush, long yellow and orange tongues of fire engulfed the pyramid of letters. Soon all that was left of the love between Margaret and Lucy was a handful of grey flakes. ‘And into ashes all my lust,' I thought. I'd loved that poem by Andrew Marvell when I was an undergraduate. How did it go on? Yes, that was it: ‘The grave's a fine and private place, But none I think do there embrace.'

I went over to the telephone.

It took a long time for Stephen to answer. ‘I've only been home about ten minutes. You got me out of the shower.'

‘Can you come over right away?'

‘Are you all right?'

‘Yes. Can you come?'

‘Forty minutes?'

‘Fine.'

It was only six o'clock, but a murky twilight was descending and it was growing dark inside the house. I took a bottle of Chablis from the fridge. In the bedroom I cleared a stack of books off the bedside table to make room for the wine and glasses. The heat at the top of the house was stifling, the air heavy and stale. I pulled the pins out of my bun and shook my hair free, running my hands through it close to my scalp. I opened the window: a blast of cold air came in. After a few seconds I closed it and stood gazing out towards Ely. Thick curtains of rain were sweeping across the plain. The outline of the cathedral became blurred and then disappeared. There was a flash of lightning overhead, rapidly followed by a roll of thunder that cracked like a whip. Huge drops of rain began to fall, at first slowly, then more urgently, thrashing the leaves on the trees and pock-marking the surface of the stream.

Stephen's car turned into the drive. I raced down the stairs to let him in. As he ran down the path, the skies opened. It was if someone was emptying buckets of water over him. He plunged through the door, gasping and pushing his hair back. I slammed the door behind him as if the storm might follow him into the house. Water was streaming off him. He kicked off his shoes, peeled off his sodden jacket and dropped it on the floor. We stepped into each other's arms. Leaning against him, eyes closed and my face pressed against his shoulder, I breathed in the familiar citrus scent of his cologne mingled with wet, freshly laundered shirt. The dampness soaked into my shirt and made me shiver. I pulled away and got a towel from the kitchen.

We climbed the first flight of stairs with our arms wrapped around each other's waists. The second flight was narrowed by the books I'd piled on either side of each tread. We went up single file, Stephen towelling his hair as he followed me.

Sheets of rain were sliding down the bedroom windows. The view out across the fens wavered, dissolved, reformed.

I left my clothes where they fell and got into bed. Stephen did the same. I poured the wine and handed it to him.

‘I thought you were saving this for a special occasion.'

‘Isn't every day a special occasion?' I raised my glass. ‘To “days of wine and roses”.'

Stephen touched his glass to mine.

‘“They are not long…”,' he said, ‘Isn't that how it goes? Tennyson?'

‘Ernest Dowson. One of the poets of the decadence.'

Stephen picked up a handful of my hair and held it up to the light. Red and gold strands glistened among the brown.

‘There's something decadent about making love to a woman with hair down to her waist. Have you ever thought of cutting it?'

I looked into the familiar face: the hazel eyes with their heavy lids, the slightly aquiline nose.

‘Never,' I said. I leaned across and pressed my lips to his. His arms tightened around me.

A little later, a wine glass rolled off the bed. I heard it crack as it hit the wooden floor, but it was too late.

*   *   *

I awoke with a jolt. For a few moments I couldn't think where I was or what time of day it was. The bedside light was on. Beyond its circle of light the room was dim. The clock on the bedside table said five to ten. Next to it was a half-full bottle of wine and one empty wine glass. My mouth was dry and I was heavy with sleep. I pulled myself up against the pillows. My hair was everywhere, stuck to my back, netted over my breasts. I gathered it up in both hands and pushed it back over my shoulders. Clothes were strewn around the bed, some of them Stephen's. The day came back in a rush: Margaret's study, the letters, the storm, the urgent love-making, and afterwards our bodies stuck together with sweat.

A distant clatter of pans and a droning noise, which I recognized as Stephen singing, told me that he had gone down to the kitchen to start cooking.

I got out of bed and opened the window. The wet garden glinted in the light from the house. The rain had sharpened the scent of the flowers and there was a delicious freshness in the air. In the deepening twilight only Bill Bailey's white paws, chest and muzzle were visible as he strolled down the garden path.

I poured myself a glass of wine, got back into bed and pulled the sheet up over my breasts. Presently, I heard Stephen coming up the stairs. He appeared in the doorway with a tray. He was wearing only a tea towel knotted round his waist.

‘You know, you're in pretty good shape for a man of your age,' I said.

‘Why, thank you. I can cook, too. Here we have penne with anchovies, olives and capers.'

He put the tray in the middle of the bed and clambered in next to me. We ate in ravenous and appreciative silence. When we had finished, Stephen moved the tray and pulled me towards him. I put my head on his shoulder. He shifted round to kiss me, but I put a hand on his shoulder to hold him off.

‘I want to ask you something. How easy do you think it would be to drown yourself in a swimming pool? On purpose, I mean.'

‘Ah. So that's the lie of the land? I thought there was something up. Well…'

He lay back, looking at the ceiling as he thought this over.

At last he said, ‘I think it would be difficult, that's assuming you could swim. And Margaret could, I assume?'

‘She was a good swimmer.'

‘Well, you'd have to overcome a powerful physical instinct for survival. Drink or drugs could do it. Of course the pathologist will have checked for those in Margaret's blood.'

‘That'll come out at the inquest, won't it?'

‘Yes, but it still wouldn't prove that she'd killed herself. It might just be that she fell in accidentally and was too drunk to get out again.'

Stephen shifted round so that he could look into my face. ‘But why are you asking? There's something you haven't told me, isn't there? Have you found out that Malcolm
was
having an affair?'

I turned my face away.

‘There is something, though, isn't there?' he persisted.

‘You won't tell anyone?'

‘Cass! I wouldn't have lasted long as a lawyer if I didn't know how to be discreet.'

‘I know. OK.'

I told him about the letters.

He let out his breath in a long sigh.

‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.'

‘You don't sound very surprised.'

‘I thought there was more to this than met the eye. I just didn't know what. Do you think Malcolm had any idea?'

‘I'm sure he didn't.'

‘You know, it's amazing what people can keep secret. One of my first jobs when I qualified was acting for a woman who had just discovered that her late husband had another wife – and child – tucked away for the last ten years of their marriage. Neither of them knew a thing about the other.'

I was longing for a cigarette. Lying in bed talking: this was one of the times when I missed smoking most. I realized that I had made a mistake having that cigarette on the day of Margaret's funeral. I rolled over, took a packet of extra strong mints out of the drawer of the bedside table and offered one to Stephen.

As he took it, he said, ‘What folly though, keeping those letters. It's amazing the way that people will hang on to incriminating evidence.'

‘They were all she had left of Lucy.'

‘You said she was dead. What happened exactly?'

‘Climbing accident, in the Peak District.'

‘Do you think there was any chance of her leaving Malcolm?'

I sat up and rested my arms on my raised knees while I thought about this.

‘Doubt it, really. She was so down on that sort of thing – people breaking up their marriages. And the scandal: her successful career here, the kudos of it, it all meant such a lot to her.'

‘Would it have been such a scandal? People are more enlightened than that, aren't they – especially here?'

I considered this. ‘Well, in a way they are, of course. Academically there is a lot of focus on homosexuality, and it's sometimes quite confrontational: Queer Theory is the latest thing – yes, it is really called that! And there are plenty of gay dons, there always have been, but it's very much a male thing and there's still quite a lot of misogyny around. Running off with a woman, and a student, at that…'

‘So she was on course to destroy both her private and her professional life.' He pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘When sensible people make a mistake, they often do it big-time. Pity she didn't destroy those letters.'

‘But lucky I found them and did it for her.'

In the silence that ensued there was a thin, high wail like the cry of a baby. I got up and opened the bedroom door. Bill Bailey stalked in. When I turned to get back into bed, I saw that Stephen had propped himself on his elbow. He was staring at me as though I'd just lobbed a hand grenade into the bed.

‘What?' I said.

He went on looking at me with an expression of exaggerated incredulity.

‘WHAT?'

He flung himself back onto the pillows. ‘How could you do that, Cassandra?'

‘You've just said yourself she should have destroyed them.'

‘But she didn't,' he said, emphasizing every word. ‘She did not destroy them. And it wasn't your place to do it for her. What did you do, burn them?'

I nodded. ‘Stephen, I couldn't let Malcolm see those letters. It would tear him apart.'

‘It wasn't up to you to decide that, Cassandra. They were evidence that should have been put before the coroner.'

‘Evidence of what? You said yourself that it'll be difficult to tell if Margaret committed suicide. Why should Malcolm suffer more than he already is? He's the innocent party in all this.'

‘As far as you know,' Stephen said grimly. ‘Suppose he got wind of the affair and gave Margaret a helping hand into the pool?'

I stared at him. ‘You don't really think that.'

‘How the hell do I know?'

‘But … no, he wouldn't…'

At the sight of my stricken face he relented.

‘Oh, well, probably not. You said he was away on business, didn't you? The police will have checked that out. But even so … And another thing, how can you be sure that you're the only one who knows about this?'

This stopped me in my tracks. ‘It was a secret. Lucy said so in her last letter.'