Dying to Write Read online

  ‘What’s he like in action?’

  I shouldn’t have asked; it was like asking how good a colleague was in the classroom.

  ‘Didn’t see much of him, Soph. Mostly some woman. Hard as nails, but fair. Then she hands me over to the DCI. Mostly he’s very quiet. Then there’s a sort of hiss. And every so often he gets up and bangs the table. Then he goes and stares out of the window, and this older bloke with a face like a tired horse, he comes over and starts telling you how upset the DCI is about you being involved, Soph, and why don’t I make it easy for everyone and tell them all I know? But I already have. I just don’t know about any Chinese or Japanese or any other-ese you care to mention. Honest. And you don’t really believe me either, do you?’

  I looked at him frankly. ‘You know I do. But it’s all so much of a coincidence.’

  He gave one last dust to my nose. ‘There. Have a look at yourself, and then go and wow that poet who’s doing his reading tonight.’

  ‘Poet!’

  ‘Hugh Someone-or-other. The guest reader. Really something, he is. I’ll fight you for him!’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Is there any news of Thea?’ I asked as soon as I reached the kitchen. Agnes was stirring the vegetable curry reproachfully, and permitted herself a glance at her watch.

  ‘Mr Gimson phoned Shazia,’ she said. ‘She’s going to live, and it’s thanks to you, she says. No, don’t you dare touch anything until you’ve got one of those aprons on. There – behind the door. Curry’s indelible stuff.’

  I was gracing the occasion with the only two silk items in my wardrobe: a camisole intended to make the wearer look sexy and a coordinating overshirt. White jeans, and some strappy sandals that would make Toad salivate. But I did not intend – much as I wanted to explore his dedication to the viola – to sit anywhere near Toad this evening.

  I tested a forkful of Agnes’s rice. Beautifully al dente.

  ‘And Mr Gimson says she watched the whole affair, Sophie. From a spot near the ceiling – just up there.’ She gestured with the spoon. ‘I’d have loved to see Gimson’s face when she said that. Oh, and he sends his apologies – he won’t be joining us for our meal tonight. He’s met some old crony at the hospital and he’ll eat with him.’

  Our colleagues had already gathered in the dining room. We could hear their voices: the publisher-elect laying down the law; a murmur from Shazia; the giggly girl and the brace-girl; Mr Woodhouse quavering a little. Matt sounded perilously forbearing – he must have got landed with Toad. And another, rather deep voice, talking to Courtney, no doubt the gorgeous poet. Hoping his appearance would match up to his calling, I positively demanded a bearded man with holey jeans and an inadequate T-shirt.

  Agnes had already laid out plates for the first course, and now she staggered off with the plate of pakora. I picked up the larger plate, laden with samosas. One slid off.

  It disappeared under the china cabinet, but not, I was sure, of its own volition.

  ‘You might as well come out, Sidney,’ I said. I should have been grateful for his safe return; as it was, I wished he’d waited until after supper. ‘You won’t enjoy that. Too spicy. You’d be better off with a biscuit. Come on, try a custard cream.’

  I fished one from the biscuit barrel and held it not quite close enough. The whiskers moved a little closer. I could now see a pair of eyes.

  Then the door opened.

  I didn’t shift my gaze from Sidney’s.

  ‘Close the door very quietly and don’t speak,’ I breathed. ‘Come on, Sidney. You know you like biscuit. I’ve spent a long time sprucing up and I’m damned if I’m going to lie on the floor to talk to you. You’re a civilised creature. You understand.’

  He did. He crept out. A quick rush, and long teeth sank purposefully into the biscuit.

  It would be a gross exaggeration to say he leaped into my hands; but he certainly consented to my picking him up without having to crawl all over the floor.

  He’d kept himself respectable, but he’d lost weight and smelled more strongly than ever. There would be no separating him from his biscuit. On reflection, it would keep him usefully occupied while I transferred him back to his cage. I rather thought he might be kept in the stables tonight, under police protection. Perhaps if they kept the top half of the door open, he wouldn’t stink the place out.

  ‘OK, young man, it’s straight back home for you,’ I said, reaching for the door.

  ‘Matt was right,’ said the young man who opened it for me. ‘You really are an interesting woman.’

  I suppose to describe Hugh Brierley as a young man reflects my view that although I’m well into my thirties I’m by no means middle-aged. Hugh was about Chris’s age – thirty-eight – but he was altogether sleeker and glossier. In normal circumstances such a man might not have attracted me, and I might not have welcomed his offer to escort me back to my room. But who could refuse the chance to have doors opened when she is carrying a nervous rat?

  We accomplished the journey safely, and re-installed Sidney. He’d left no more than a rat’s-bottom-shaped set of creases in my shirt, and perhaps the faintest trail of fine crumbs. He drained his water bottle as we watched. I slipped out to replenish it.

  Hugh was standing my the desk when I returned. He glanced ironically from me to the blank sheet of paper and the ball-point pen poised to record my poetic thoughts, as and when they should deign to flow.

  I shrugged with equal irony.

  What I could have done with at this point was a stiff drink. Like Sidney’s, but with gin. What I had was a social situation I was by no means sure I could deal with. Particularly when Sidney demanded his litter tray.

  We stood solemnly side by side and watched him use it. Then I gathered him up and once more returned him to his cage.

  ‘The trouble is, I said, to fill the silence and get us back to supper as fast as I could, ‘I bet Sidney’s filling you with all sorts of poetic inspiration, while all he does is make me feel sick with the smell of him.’

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ he said solemnly. ‘But before we eat I’d certainly like to wash my hands.’

  Not an auspicious beginning, then, to our relationship. I’d liked his opening line, but marked him low on effort and artistic achievement for the rest. I didn’t sit next to him for the meal, either. The publisher-elect grabbed him, almost literally. Matt, at the head of the table, patted the seat next to him, but without enthusiasm. I joined him, with a perfunctory smile. I still craved that gin. Matt looked grey, and ate his way through the first course, the one I’d hoped would stimulate lots of favourable comments, in total silence. So did I. At last, seeing that Agnes was now deeply engaged in discussion with Hugh, Matt offered to help with collecting plates and distributing the larger ones warming in the kitchen. Then he carried in the rice – two big platters, requiring separate journeys. I took in the bowls of vegetable curry, one for each end of the table.

  Still no opportunity to talk to Hugh, of course. I was irritated that I wanted to: surely I was at an age where someone’s brain mattered more than his looks? And he’d hardly been charming – except for his opening comment, of course. Perhaps he was now being charming to the publisher, whose name I ought to use, if one could ever decently refer to someone as Tabitha. She was certainly laughing a great deal, though possibly at her own wit. Toad, who was opposite them, was holding forth about Madame Tussaud’s for some reason.

  And I ought to be talking to Matt. Even listening to him wouldn’t be a bad start. I turned apologetically.

  ‘I wonder what Gimson will eat,’ I said idly. ‘Perhaps he engineered Thea’s attack just to avoid an ethnic meal.’

  ‘Is that what you’ve been worrying about for the last ten minutes?’

  ‘What else?’

  He grinned, but then turned to look at me more fully. ‘You did well there, kid,’ he said at last.

  ‘Couldn’t have done anything without Shazia and Naukez. Not to mention Gimson.’

  ‘
Any idea who did it?’

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to point out that whoever had killed the rat had probably killed Nyree. I wondered if he’d killed Kate, too. If she’d been killed. The tampon business might suggest otherwise.

  ‘I mean,’ he pursued, ‘it’s not the nicest thing to do.’

  ‘Agreed. I don’t suppose either the rat or Thea enjoyed it.’

  ‘You’re being very cagey, Sophie.’

  I winced extravagantly at the pun. ‘Cagey? Just shit-scared!’

  ‘They’ve been putting pressure on Courtney,’ he continued. ‘Do you think they really suspect him?’

  This time I was cagey: ‘I noticed he looked pretty grim – in the kitchen, just after – after … When I was having gibbering hysteria.’

  ‘Such a cliché is not worthy of you. You simply passed out, quite unobtrusively. And I’ll bet those tears were caused by those stinking smelling salts that big Boy Scout of yours kept shoving up your nose. What’s he got to say about it, anyway?’

  ‘Nothing. I suppose he’s been too busy detecting. That’s his job.’

  Matt pushed his plate away. ‘Jesus, Sophie, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Talk to Chris? Hang on, didn’t he want to see you this afternoon? Did he say anything to you?’

  ‘What didn’t he say! Jesus, he’s supposed to be a friend of yours, isn’t he? How did you fetch up with someone like him? D’you know, he practically accused me of raping her and then disposing of her body. Me! As if I could ever harm Kate!’

  I wasn’t quite sure which line to take. Mostly I wanted to remain silent in the hope he’d continue. ‘Did he tell you why?’ I had to ask, eventually.

  ‘The sodding glasses, that’s why.’

  ‘Glasses?’

  ‘I had a couple of glasses in my room. And the whiskey. Irish.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’d drunk out of one, see, and Kate out of the other. I didn’t try to hide them. In fact, I never even washed them up. You know how it is. And now they’ve confiscated them, and the bloody whiskey. Good job I’ve got another bottle. Hey, why don’t you come and share it later?’

  ‘Sounds nice,’ I said, temporising. ‘But why should an innocent drink make Chris think –?’

  ‘God knows. She’s a friend, Sophie. A dear, dear friend.’

  ‘And you didn’t rape her and dispose of her body?’ I said, smiling grimly to show I was joking. If I was.

  He dropped his voice so low I could hardly hear it above the chatter and the scrape of cutlery. ‘She was my friend. We’ve been friends for years – nice, platonic friends. Then – I don’t quite know when – I fell in love with her. I think. At least, I wanted to go to bed with her.’

  ‘Is that why you wanted her to be a tutor? So you’d have rooms next door to each other?’

  ‘I don’t know. No, I don’t think so. I thought she’d end up enjoying teaching.’

  ‘She didn’t.’

  ‘No. And maybe if she’d stayed in the student corridor –’

  ‘No ifs, Matt,’ I said sharply. ‘Being in the student wing didn’t help Nyree, did it?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘What about the other tutor – the one you’re supposed to have poisoned?’

  ‘Phil Doyle? He had a gall-bladder attack and needed an operation. I might as well have poisoned him – we went and had fish and chips together, and he was supposed to be on a fat-free diet. You must have heard me and Kate – it was a joke, Sophie. Honest. And I thought it would be a great chance for Kate. She … she loved me before I loved her. She came willingly to my room. Don’t ever doubt that. And would have come to my bed. But I fell asleep. I bloody fell asleep, Sophie, with this warm attractive woman there in front of me. When I woke up, she wasn’t there, of course. But before she left, she’d taken my shoes off and covered me with the duvet. And now God knows where she is.’

  I touched his hand gently. He turned to clasp mine. ‘The one you have to watch for,’ he said in quite another voice, ‘is our friend Hugh. Got a bit of a reputation, has Hugh. Mad, bad and dangerous to know.’

  I pulled back my chair to peer under the table.

  ‘Just looking,’ I said to Matt, ‘to see if he’s got a club foot. I’m just in the mood for a Byronic hero.’

  It was just as well no one had prepared Hugh a giant hollow cake for a nude woman to leap out of: there’d have been too much competition for the role of cake-filling. Both the brace-girl and the giggly girl were now craning right forward to gain his attention. Tabitha had leaned round to obscure anyone at her end of the table. Poor Courtney was feigning an interest in wax models so he could gate-crash the conversation with which Toad was still persisting.

  ‘Being a writer is its own aphrodisiac,’ Matt observed tartly. ‘Hey, world! I’ve been published too!’

  I laughed, and went round the table collecting plates. Agnes didn’t notice – she was too busy burrowing in her bag for something. So it was up to me to bring in the summer pud.

  Agnes hadn’t found a basin big enough for all of us, so she’d used two smaller ones. She’d tipped them on to plates some time before supper and decorated them. She’d sliced strawberries round the circumference and then plonked a whole strawberry on top of each. Commissioned writer she might be, but she didn’t have as dirty a mind as mine. I was shaking with silent giggles as I carried them in – chest-high, a plate in each hand. My quivering made the puddings quiver too. Matt was staring into his glass; most other people were engaging Hugh’s attention or were trying to.

  But Hugh looked up and caught my eye. When he smiled, slowly, erotically, I’m afraid my pulse beat distinctly faster.

  I returned demurely to my place. Then, because, after all, the room was quite warm, I took off my overshirt, slipping it over the back of my chair. Perhaps the camisole would do its stuff and make me look sexy. Perhaps, even better, it would make me feel sexy. Meanwhile, waves of dejection kept washing over me. For all the brilliant cerise of the camisole and a whole tropic of colours on the overshirt, I felt bleak. Chris ought to have made some effort to come and see how I was; he shouldn’t have been put off by Agnes’s mock anger. He should have tried to comfort me, even if I’d rejected any attempts to do so. Kate would have cuddled Sidney. If I’d been at home I’d have dug out my old teddy bear.

  I was on my own in the kitchen. The team of cooks was also supposed to wash up, but Thea was in hospital and Agnes wrestling with an asthma attack which one or two people were ready to ascribe to the presence of Sidney in the kitchen. I rather hoped other people might offer to help out, but on the assumption that I’d stay on my own, I scraped and stacked systematically. Then I thought of my silk camisole. I’d have to wear that disgusting apron again, and maybe rubber gloves.

  I could feel my hair collapsing in the steam from the washing-up water; I could almost see the glow from my shiny nose, my make-up having gone wherever make-up goes. Perhaps it was a good job everyone else was dancing attendance on Hugh, I thought bitterly. Was it Mary or Martha who got stuck with the chores while her sister was listening to Jesus? And then got told off for her pains? I felt for her. And for me. And I still wanted that gin. Especially as I could hear the deep attractive laugh rumbling in the distance. At this rate, Hugh’s reading might start without me.

  I’d better sing.

  One thing I will lay claim to is a good voice. It’s not all that strong but it’s true. I filled my lungs and let rip. Schubert, the Octet. All eight parts, if not quite at once.

  So I jumped – literally, it seemed – when a hand lifted a plate from the drying rack.

  ‘Sorry to hear about the rat business,’ said Ade. ‘Nasty thing to do.’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘I thought you’d like to know they’ll be doing a postmortem.’

  ‘On a rat!’ I exclaimed. ‘They’ll be having a bloody inquest next! Doesn’t having your head cut off usually result in death?’

  A different hand took the next plate. ‘In a
case like this you can’t afford to make assumptions like that, Ms Rivers,’ said Chris. ‘In any case, I thought you and Ade were rodent-lovers.’

  ‘I’m more a gerbil man myself,’ said Ade, who’d obviously missed the sarcasm. ‘Less smelly, if less intelligent. I keep mine in a big aquarium, with a deep layer of peat and sawdust, so any smells they make are quickly diffused. And I bath them, very occasionally. You could bath Sidney, of course. That might help.’

  ‘Bath him?’ Chris asked, pausing, his hand suspended over the plate rack.

  ‘Some rats jump, so you need to close the doors and windows. Lukewarm water, then towel them dry.’

  ‘Not a hair dryer?’ I asked, keeping my voice particularly serious.

  ‘Only if you’re very careful. Low heat. And make sure you blow the fur the right way.’

  ‘That goes without saying.’ All this talk about bloody animals when I could hear that laugh again, responding, I was sure, to Tabitha.

  I emptied the washing-up water and ran the taps again. Glasses, now. But it was nice to have assistance. And I was enjoying Ade’s conversation. So, I suspected, was Chris, who was gaining an insight not only into rodent care, but also into one of his more promising colleagues. I hoped he appreciated it.

  ‘Any news,’ I said, after a reasonable interval, ‘of Kate?’

  ‘The news is bloody well full of Kate,’ said Chris. ‘God knows who snitched to the press. We wanted to maintain the blackout another twenty-four hours at least. Haven’t you seen – oh, of course, no TV, right?’

  ‘No radio either. Just newspapers. And she wasn’t front page this morning. In any case, there can’t be any real news or you’d have told me – wouldn’t you?’

  He laughed.

  ‘So the news is no news?’ I prompted.

  ‘The news is we’re still looking. Roadblocks. We’ve extended the search to Cannock Chase and all public parks in the area, big and small. A check on all ports, of course. The press’ll be baying round here any moment. Hell, the last thing we want is unauthorised bloody poking around. Jesus!’