The Burning (24 page)

‘That’s very interesting,’ I said feebly, trying to take a grip on the interview, though conversation with the vice-principal was like manhandling an eel. ‘I understand that Adam’s body wasn’t found immediately.’

‘Indeed not. The Isis flows swiftly here.’ He squinted at me. ‘That’s the local name for the Thames, my dear. From the Latin,
Tamesis
. I find it a much more beautiful nomenclature for such an important body of water.’

‘It must have been a difficult time for the college,’ I persisted. ‘Very unsettling for the students.’

‘And the SCR. It was a tremendous shock.’ He stood up and beckoned me over to a window on the other side of the room. ‘This is the Garden side of the college. That sweep, from the bridge over to the willow on the right, all belongs to Latimer. It’s quite lovely for nine months of the year, but you can’t expect to see it at its best in December.’

I agreed, staring out at the dark river oozing between sodden banks, overhung with bare branches and defeated-looking shrubs. The flowerbeds that would bring the scene to life later in the year were standing empty, dark-brown cut-outs from yet another impeccable lawn. A fence ran along the edge of the river from the bridge to the tree the professor had indicated. It was made of narrow palings about six feet high.

‘The fence was added following Mr Rowley’s tragic death. I must say, it seemed a shame to me that we couldn’t simply learn from what happened to him, rather than defacing one of the loveliest outlooks in Oxford. But of course the implications for our insurance couldn’t be ignored; the bursar was most persuasive. And it formed part of the coroner’s recommendations, which we followed to the letter.’

He sat down again and waited for me to return to my armchair. ‘We also conducted our own investigation to find out if he had acquired the drugs he had taken within these walls. He had spent the evening in the college bar, you see, and we were suspicious that there might be someone distributing drugs within the student body. The dean and I found to our great sadness that there was a graduate student – a chemist, perhaps unsurprisingly – who had been manufacturing certain hallucinogens, and although he hadn’t sold them to Adam Rowley as far as we knew, he was sent down immediately. We couldn’t tolerate that sort of behaviour. The college is quite clear on that front in the material it provides to matriculating students.’

‘Adam had taken sedatives,’ I said. ‘That’s not what you’d go for if you wanted to have a good time.’

He spread his hands. ‘I am unfamiliar with the pastime of taking illegal substances, my dear. But I am led to believe that you can’t always be sure what it is you are taking. I’m afraid that Mr Rowley was misled about the pills he took. But there was no suggestion that he obtained them from a member of Latimer.’

‘Do you know anything about what happened with Rebecca Haworth?’ I said, changing tack. ‘She dropped out for a year – had a nervous breakdown, I believe.’

‘I remember her,’ Professor Westcott said, nodding. ‘She was a very pretty girl. Of course, they are very young, the undergraduates, and getting younger all the time.’ He allowed himself a little chesty laugh. ‘They feel things terribly deeply. One understood that she wasn’t in a position to tackle Schools.’

I looked quizzical.

‘Schools is another term for the final examinations that the undergraduates sit. Also known as Finals.’

So why
, I found myself thinking,
didn’t you just
say
her final exams?

‘Of course the college was concerned that she shouldn’t suffer simply because of what had occurred with her fellow undergraduate. On the other hand, we were reluctant to allow her to avoid Finals because there was the danger that others would take the same route, and we couldn’t allow the entire year to defer. She was fortunate that she had a champion in the senior common room – her tutor was very persuasive.’

‘Her tutor being …’

‘Dr Faraday. He’s no longer a fellow here.’

It was not my imagination that a dark look came over the professor’s face at the mention of Caspian Faraday.

‘You don’t seem to be a fan of his.’

‘Not at all,’ Professor Westcott said blandly. ‘A most able historian.’

‘When did he leave?’

‘Oh, it must have been five years ago. Maybe six. He’s based in London now, I understand.’

‘I’m sure I’ll be able to track him down.’

The professor raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? You think it’s necessary?’

‘I’d like to hear what he has to say, yes.’ I decided to push my luck. ‘Do you mind me asking why he left Oxford?’

‘You may certainly ask.’

There was a small, awkward pause. Professor Westcott gave a shallow cough.

‘I do apologise. Force of habit. It’s one of the turns of phrase I encourage my students to drop.’

‘I’ll try to avoid it in future.’ I leaned forward. ‘I do still want to know why Caspian Faraday left Latimer College, Professor Westcott. From what I understand, he would have needed a pretty good reason to leave.’ And I also had a fair idea what might have happened courtesy of Rebecca’s university friends. I wondered if he would confirm what they’d told me – that the friendly relationship between student and tutor had gone a bit too far.

Professor Westcott stared past my right ear for a long moment before replying, and when he did, he managed not to answer my question directly. ‘You know, when Adam Rowley died, it was a difficult time. With the guidance of the principal, we embarked on a close examination of this institution and its members. We were satisfied, when we had finished, that Latimer College could stand up to any amount of scrutiny. We were sure that we had nothing to hide. So while I am enjoying this conversation tremendously, I’m afraid that I can’t think how I might provide you with any further assistance.’

I could take a hint. The interview was drawing to a close, whether I liked it or not. Before leaving the professor to his books, though, there was something I wanted to know. ‘Do you remember Rebecca’s best friend? Louise North. She studied law.’

The professor thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, but no. If she was a lawyer, she probably spent most of her time in the law faculty or the college library. I doubt she was seen in the hours of daylight. Jurisprudence is a most demanding degree.’

And Louise had not been a very pretty undergraduate with a nice line in handwringing, it went without saying. Poor Louise, always in Rebecca’s shadow. I might have been bitter about that, if it had been me.

Professor Westcott had got to his feet and was replacing the chair he’d been sitting on against a wall. ‘I apologise if I’m rushing you, but I do have a tutorial in five minutes.’

‘No, I’m sorry for delaying you. Thank you for seeing me.’ I gathered my things together in a hurry, shook his hand, then turned to go. At the door, I hesitated and looked back. ‘Before I leave, do you mind telling me when your close examination of the college ended and you were satisfied you had nothing to hide?’

‘Oh, it must have been five years ago. Maybe six,’ the professor said, and behind his thick lenses, one eyelid drooped in what might have been a wink.

Chapter Nine

M
AEVE

It absolutely didn’t surprise me to discover, via the DVLA database, that Caspian Faraday drove a black 1971 Aston Martin DBS V8, a car-collector’s dream that was worth a good six figures. Nor was it a shock that he lived in a six-bedroom double-fronted house in the serene and leafy exclusivity of Highgate Village. He had, after all, made a lot of money from three well-regarded and popular history books, not to mention the television series that had accompanied his last, currently available in hardback and on display in the window of every bookshop in the interminable run-up to Christmas. And Google had informed me, in loving, breathless detail, of the good marriage he had made with the daughter of a convenience-food magnate. I had been expecting well heeled; I had even been expecting ostentatious. What did surprise me, however, when I trekked up to Highgate on a bright, cold afternoon to interview him, was that he had invited his solicitor to come along too. And if that was a bad start to our conversation, things were going to get a lot more awkward before I was finished.

The historian had seemed nervous on the phone, and defensive, two emotions that I generally enjoyed in an interviewee. Nerves and defensiveness were excellent indicators that someone had something to hide, and I was in the luxurious position of having a fairly shrewd idea what that something might be. The best questions for a detective are the ones where you already know the answer, because a lie can be far more revealing than the truth.

It didn’t look as if I was going to be hearing much of either when I strolled into Caspian Faraday’s comfortable, elegantly furnished sitting room to find an overweight middle-aged man scowling from the depths of an armchair. He had dewlaps like a bulldog.

‘My lawyer, Avery Mercer,’ Faraday said from behind me, and I detected a note of smugness that had not been there when the historian opened the front door and practically dragged me into the house. Heaven forbid the neighbours should notice the policewoman on the doorstep, even if I was in plain clothes. And heaven forbid that lovely, rich Delia Faraday should get back from her shopping trip before I was finished. I was quite certain that she hadn’t been told I was coming to see him, or why, and equally certain that he wouldn’t tell her about it once I had gone if he could get away with it. There were things no wife needed to know. Especially if she was the reason Caspian could divide his time between the house in London, the villa in the south of France, the mansion in the Lake District, the duplex in New York and the Parisian apartment that had featured in
House & Garden
and overlooked the Place des Vosges. History didn’t pay
that
well.

I attempted to look wounded. ‘I thought I made it clear on the phone, Mr Faraday, this is just a casual conversation. There’s no need for you to have legal representation. You aren’t a suspect.’ I waited a beat. ‘At the moment, anyway.’

The bulldog stirred. ‘My client asked me to join him as he wasn’t certain why you were interested in speaking with him. I am sure you know better than to draw any conclusions from the fact of my presence.’

I threw the lawyer a meaningless smile and concentrated on Caspian Faraday, who had sat down in a chair by the window so the light was behind him. That old trick. It might have been habit, however, rather than guilt, because the first thought I had had when he had opened the front door was that he had aged considerably since his author photograph was taken. The close-cropped fair hair had silvered and was receding inexorably in the classic M shape; he had had a high forehead in the picture I’d seen previously, but time had tipped it beyond that to straightforward, undeniable balding. He had a deep tan that did nothing to hide the wrinkles around his startlingly blue eyes, and the intellectual’s black poloneck was not quite managing to camouflage the softening of his jaw and an incipient paunch. Too much good living, I diagnosed. For all that, he was still attractive: he was tall and broad-shouldered, he had beautiful hands, and his voice was deeply resonant. He was forty-four, I knew from his driving licence, which also told me that he liked to drive faster than was legal and had nine points to show for it. That meant he could be reckless, and impulsive, and that was what I had been hoping to use against him. Avery Mercer, however, was showing every sign that he would take pleasure in applying the brakes on his client’s behalf, and I stifled a sigh as I looked around, working out where to sit. There was a small chair near the door and I picked it up and placed it by the window, closer to Faraday than he liked.

‘Do you mind? I need good light so I can read my own writing,’ I said with a wide grin.

He struggled with himself for a moment, looking around the room at the many places I could have sat that would have done just as well. Politeness won out, as I had known it would. ‘Please. Sit wherever you like. There are probably more comfortable chairs, though.’

‘This is fine,’ I said, shifting my weight and feeling it give very slightly as I did so. ‘Is it old?’

‘Regency. But if it’s survived this long, it should make it through a – what was it you said? – casual conversation.’

‘I’ll be careful.’

Faraday smiled politely, then shot a covert look in his lawyer’s direction. Checking to see whether he should be worried, I thought, and took my time about asking my first question.

‘I’m here to talk to you about Rebecca Haworth. Can you tell me how you met her?’

‘The first time we met was when she was applying to Oxford. I interviewed her. That would have been the December before she came up – so over ten years ago.’ He looked startled for a moment. ‘I hadn’t realised it was so long ago.’

‘What were your first impressions – do you remember?’

‘She was obviously very bright. Very well informed and well read. She had an active and questioning mind, which is what we were looking for in our undergraduates. You can teach someone the facts, but if they don’t have the intellect to draw their own conclusions, there’s very little point in them being at Oxford.’

‘But Rebecca did?’

‘Certainly. I remember being impressed with her confidence, but also her speed in responding to a new idea as soon as I suggested it to her. A lot of young people break down if you challenge their views, but she enjoyed the discussion. There was no question in my mind that she should be admitted to Latimer College, and when she came up the following October she seemed to settle in quickly.’

‘And you were her tutor.’

‘One of them. There were three history fellows and we shared the teaching between us. She also would have had tutorials in other colleges, in the subjects where we didn’t have a lot of expertise between us. And of course the history faculty arranged a programme of lectures. I’m afraid I don’t know whether she was good at attending them – they are essentially optional.’

His manner was pleasant and open, as if he had nothing to hide, and for a moment a worm of doubt squirmed at the back of my mind. But I had heard enough to know that there was more to the story than he was letting on at the moment.

‘What was your relationship with Rebecca?’

‘I taught her. I provided her with support and guidance, when it was appropriate.’

‘You stood up for her when she wanted to defer her exams, I understand.’

‘As I would have done for any of my students.’ His voice was still calm, but now he leaned forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together.

‘According to the person I spoke to at Latimer College, you had quite a battle on your hands.’

‘Who was that?’

‘A senior member of the college,’ I said blandly, not seeing why I needed to tell him anything more.

He sighed. ‘They were being completely unreasonable. Rebecca was a very good student – first class, in my view. She was having a difficult time. They couldn’t expect her to sit finals three weeks after the death of one of her friends, and do herself justice.’

‘Did you know Adam Rowley?’

‘Who? Oh, the boy who died. No. I’d never noticed him. He wasn’t one of my students. I had completely forgotten his name until you mentioned it.’

It was apparent to me that Adam had been a bit-player in the drama of Caspian Faraday’s life. There was only room for one hero in the cast, and as far as he was concerned it was Caspian himself.

‘You said Rebecca wouldn’t have done herself justice if she’d taken her exams then, but she didn’t get a first in the end, did she? She got a 2.2.’

He made a dismissive gesture. ‘It’s very hard to come back after a year and sit Finals. I wasn’t surprised that she struggled. Especially given that it had taken her a long time to recover from her breakdown.’

‘You gave her some extra tutoring, I believe.’

He looked at his lawyer before answering and I suppressed a smile; we were sailing into dangerous waters now.

‘I saw her a number of times, yes. Not formally – the college was quite clear that she shouldn’t receive any extra tutoring as a result of having deferred. But I thought she deserved more than that, and I wasn’t prepared to toe the line. That was one of the many reasons why I found Latimer College to be a stifling environment. They were obsessed with rules, regulations. They didn’t seem to be able to look past tradition and see the students as people.’

‘But you did see her as more than a student, didn’t you?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ There was an edge in the velvety voice now.

‘I’ve been informed that you and Rebecca became very close when she returned to Oxford. I understand that you began a sexual relationship with her. That’s not usually considered appropriate, is it?’

‘I wondered if you’d know about that.’ He was still trying for casual and relaxed, but his hands were clamped together so tightly that the strain he was under showed in the white sheen over his knuckles. ‘Technically, we weren’t doing anything wrong. She was an adult, and no longer my student, officially. There was an attraction, I will admit, but nothing happened before her return to Oxford to sit her exams. And when it did, she was the one who started it.’

I had heard a different story from Rebecca’s friends in the pub. According to them, Faraday had groomed her, gaining her trust, inviting her to come to the house he was renting in Cowley for dinner and long drinking sessions, keeping her away from the friends she still had at Latimer. And Rebecca, still unsettled by the events of the previous year and star-struck by her brilliant, handsome tutor, had gone along with what he had so obviously wanted.

‘How long did the relationship last?’

‘A couple of months. I was going to teach at a summer school at Berkeley, and she was planning on leaving Oxford as soon as she’d sat her exams anyway. I don’t think she liked being there much. Too many memories.’ He looked at me. ‘We both knew it wasn’t going to be a longstanding affair. It was a fling, but a highly pleasurable one for both of us.’

‘I’m sure.’ Debs, when she hadn’t been staring adoringly at Leo, had had a nice line in invective about Caspian Faraday and how he had dumped Rebecca unceremoniously and without warning, packing his bags and catching his flight to California on the same day. Rebecca, abandoned by someone she had trusted and admired, had floundered, not surprisingly. But there was no point in challenging Faraday about it now. It wasn’t a crime to break someone’s heart. I didn’t have to like him for it, though. ‘What happened then?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ He was looking wary.

‘Well, you went off to the States, and Rebecca left Oxford. Did you stay in touch?’

‘I had an email from her when the results came out. Of course, she was disappointed with her class of degree. It wasn’t a true reflection of her capabilities.’ He shrugged. ‘It was still better than nothing. I don’t think she found that the result held her back, in the long term. An Oxford BA is worth having, whatever the class.’

‘And that was the extent of your contact with her? An exchange of emails?’

‘I’m a busy man. More so now than I was then, but at the time I was committed to many hours of teaching a week as well as my own research. I didn’t have the leisure to keep track of my students – or my ex-girlfriends, if it comes to that.’

‘And you went back to teaching at Latimer College.’

‘Yes. But I left at the end of the following year.’

I looked at him limpidly. ‘I heard that you left halfway through the year.’

‘It might have been the end of Hilary term. I really can’t recall, I’m afraid.’

‘Why did you go?’

‘Lots of reasons.’ He was back to looking tense again. ‘I was finding my responsibilities to be excessively onerous. I didn’t think I was doing justice to my work or my students. I made the decision that I would be better off giving up teaching and concentrating on my writing.’

‘You had a bit of help with making that decision, didn’t you?’ I smiled pleasantly. ‘Who was it who told the college authorities about your – fling, I think you said it was – with Rebecca?’

His lips thinned to a line. ‘I never found out.’

‘They took a rather different view of it, didn’t they? They felt that the relationship was inappropriate.’

‘As I said, I found the atmosphere at Latimer to be quite stifling. They were too focused on rules for me to be happy there.’ He tried a smile. ‘I’ve always been one to push boundaries, but on this occasion I really didn’t see that I had done anything wrong. I left Oxford because I felt I had spent as long there as I really wanted to. There were other opportunities to be explored. And I think we can all agree that it was a decision that worked out nicely for me.’

‘From what I understand,’ I said silkily, ignoring the self-satisfaction, ‘you were asked to leave Latimer College and it was made clear to you that you shouldn’t apply for any other teaching positions within the university. You haven’t taught since – are you blacklisted?’

‘That is unfounded conjecture. I chose to pursue other avenues. There was no question of anyone not employing me because of what happened.’ His voice had risen and the solicitor, who had been maintaining a Buddha-like silence, cleared his throat. It seemed to recall Faraday to himself, I was disappointed to see.