Dying on Principle Page 21

  He shrugged. ‘Christ alone knows. But I guess the forensic-science team will come up with some suggestions. Got time for another coffee?’

  ‘Haven’t finished this yet. And I’m due in class in eleven minutes flat.’

  ‘Leave your bike here. I’m running you up.’ He grabbed his keys and ushered me out. ‘And you can tell me all about that mysterious business of the earth having been disturbed and laid flat again. I should have picked it up last night, of course. But I want to see the place – that’s why I was on my way to Muntz.’

  ‘And you can tell me what you’re doing about Melina. She’s just as important as Blake, you know!’

  ‘All I can say – and it’s the honest truth, not a cliché for the media – is that we’re pursuing our inquiries. But, for your ears only, we’re not getting anywhere fast.’ He struck a filing cabinet with the flat of his hand. ‘Can’t people see there’s a connection between resources and results?’

  It’s unusual for me to be on the receiving end of a meeting’s vote of thanks, but I accepted it modestly enough. And I did deserve it. I’d done more on our project than the rest of the team put together, and they knew it. Not that we were anything like finished yet. We drew up a new schedule and reallocated work, to reflect my extra efforts. And then we adjourned to the Court Oak to celebrate. It felt good, for a change, to be sitting among friendly people who didn’t want anything from me.

  Chris had received the news of my evening’s planned drink with Fairfax with predictable lack of enthusiasm, but since he was expected to wet some baby’s head with hard-drinking colleagues, he could scarcely object. I wondered if I could wish myself on any of the people with me in the pub, or even on Polly. I still had to explain to her why I hadn’t turned up at breaktime. At least I had no classes to worry about in the afternoon, only the minutes to write up, so I had another half. I’d see her later.

  I don’t think I’d ever seen so many policemen and women in Birmingham, apart from at the odd demo, that is. They swarmed over George Muntz, filling all those empty corridors and stairwells. If Chris had underreacted before, he was certainly making up for it now. I’d have loved simply to sneak off home, but on the principle that if anything was going on I wanted to know about it, I’d joined the little queue waiting to be admitted and then was asked by a squeaky-voiced youth to go to my office and stay there till summoned.

  On the grounds that no one could get at me with so many large blue people around, I did as I was told, collecting a photocopied note from my door as I entered. This was not a Muntz memo, but one from Chris.

  I have to ask you to remain here until you have spoken to one of my colleagues. There is evidence that a serious crime has been committed, and naturally we want to exclude everyone we can from our enquiries. We will be speaking to everyone this afternoon. If you have to leave early – to collect children from school, for instance – please contact me on extension 2721 (the principal’s secretary’s extension) before you go.

  Thank you for your co-operation.

  It was signed simply Chris Groom, with no reference to his rank. I awarded him a high grade for communication skills.

  There is nothing like having to stay in a place to make you want to get up and go somewhere else. The place I most wanted to go to was Polly’s room, to apologise for missing that orange juice. At least I could phone her. But other people had the same idea, if for another reason – her phone was consistently busy. I settled to a tedious half-hour writing up the minutes of the meeting, and waited for my summons. I knew Chris wouldn’t make any obvious distinction between me and my colleagues, just in case anyone was still unaware of our relationship.

  What relationship? That was another problem. I couldn’t rely on Chris having migraines ad nauseam to keep me out of his bed. I had no objection – except for his sake – to being in his bed. And then it struck me, as I watched a BBC outside-broadcasting van pull off the main road, no doubt to report on the Muntz story, that I was doing to Chris precisely what I most disliked him doing to me: treating him as someone incapable of making his own decisions. Clearly Chris and I should sit down like the adults we were and talk through the whole business. And we should talk about the other things too.

  At last I managed to get through to Polly, who sounded more than harassed. It seemed that not every copy of the principal’s memo had been there when the police went to collect them, and Chris wanted to know how many had found their way into circulation. He saw Polly, as union rep, as a likely disseminator of information, and it sounded as if he’d given her a rough time.

  ‘But I think I managed to convince him,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Sophie, that scenario is just unreal. Can you imagine what it would do to the place if we were forced on to the contract? All those part-time teachers made redundant, probably a lot of full-time ones as well. But the stupid thing is that they couldn’t afford the redundancies bill. Not by my figures.’

  ‘Surely Curtis would have worked that out?’

  ‘My – my husband worked them out. He – he was an accountant, you see.’

  I couldn’t understand the hesitations; I knew about her and Tom Hendry, after all. I changed the subject, albeit rather crudely, and asked about a temporary refuge, should I need one.

  There was a pause; I had clearly put my foot into something. At last she spoke, her voice constrained. ‘I’m afraid – Sophie, you wouldn’t know this, no reason why you should, after all – that my husband’s got this … He’s paralysed, you see. One minute he’s fit and healthy, the next he’s got this wasting disease. The nerves and muscles. We have volunteers in to help him with … with everything, really. His brain – that’s still as clear as a bell, that’s why I got him to do the figures for me – he’s got this wonderful computer he can operate by blowing into a tube. That’s why … that’s why I could never, ever, tell him about me and Tom, you see.’

  I could think of nothing to say that would begin to be adequate.

  ‘It’s all right. I can survive. Really. That’s one reason why I do all this union stuff, I suppose – to keep my mind off things at home. And it’s not your fault I didn’t think to tell you. Everyone here knows, see. Some people even remember him the way he was.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I really am. If there’s ever anything – you know—’

  ‘Thanks. Look, I’d better—’

  ‘Hang on just a sec. Was there anything special – you know, this morning?’

  ‘Just wanted to know if there’d been any progress with Melina. And then all this blows up. It just shows, of course, doesn’t it? The fuzz take hardly any notice when Melina’s killed, but when Blake dies there’s all this song and dance. Even in death we’re not equal.’

  I could think of nothing to say because she so clearly voiced my own suspicions, but she’d already put the phone down. And then there was a knock on the door and Ian was summoning me downstairs. I set the snib carefully and followed him.

  The police had taken over a couple of classrooms, running telephone extensions presumably from the admin. gulag. Outside each room was a chair for us to wait our turn for inquisition. As I took my place, giving my name and address to a middle-aged woman who looked as if she were making her shopping list, I was irresistibly reminded of queuing for head inspections at school. On whose head would they find the lice?

  Chris himself ushered out the economic-history lecturer, grinning broadly and shaking his hand. I raised an eyebrow as I followed him back in and sat down.

  ‘This guy Muntz, Sophie, what d’you know about him?’ He sat too, peering at me over his glasses.

  I gazed at him, nonplussed.

  ‘Come on, George Muntz: surely you’ve looked him up?’

  ‘I suppose he must be one of Brum’s famous industrial sons.’

  ‘Right. Famous for?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You’ll like this, Sophie. That guy Jim reckons he’s famous for two things: owning the land on which Dorridge Station stands so one Londo
n train a day has to stop there even to this day; and replacing the copper bottoms of ships with a metal of his own invention. I wonder what he’d think of your old contract and this new one?’

  I waited; it was good to see him as relaxed as this. He took his glasses off and rubbed his face, but the gesture suggested a fresh start rather than fatigue or stress.

  ‘These holes,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’re sure about them?’

  ‘I told you this morning,’ I said.

  ‘Great. Because it looks as if the socos have found a couple of flakes of paint missing from the windowsill of the window you identified. Dr Trevelyan’s window.’

  ‘So someone could have put something with two feet this far apart –’ I moved my hands fifteen inches – ‘on the ground and rested whatever it was on the sill. I suppose your missing paint flakes aren’t a similar distance apart?’

  ‘Spot on, my dear Watson. I suppose you didn’t actually see anyone with a ladder?’ His voice was serious again.

  I shook my head. ‘But why on earth would anyone want to look through Dr T’s window?’

  ‘To spy on Mr Blake? Or photograph him to blackmail him?’

  ‘Or to watch him die?’ Our eyes met. ‘Or to kill him?’ we said together.

  25

  Chris agreed that I might as well accept Fairfax’s invitation for a drink that evening. He himself would be far too busy to think about me. The whole team would be at work, and some of them, he said, would be looking quite hard for Dr Trevelyan. If she was that good with computers she might well have expertise in electronics. Meanwhile, he’d probably be happier to have me tucked out of the way somewhere unlikely; Fairfax’s house might not have had a moat and drawbridge, but it certainly had the twentieth-century equivalent.

  In the event, Fairfax sent his car for me; as he held open a rear door for me, his chauffeur said he was delayed in a meeting. I did wonder how Fairfax himself would get home – I didn’t quite see him fumbling for change on a bus – but it transpired we were to pick him up from the Mondiale. Instead of going into the city centre via one of the roads through Harborne, which I’d have thought the natural route, the chauffeur – a middle-aged man who reluctantly admitted his name was Alan – took us back up to the main Hagley Road. It was, as usual, stressfully busy, but I suppose I’d never been as safe in a vehicle as I was now. We certainly cut an impressive swathe through the traffic, and emerged from the Five Ways underpass quite regally, I thought, before pulling up on the Mondiale’s forecourt. I wondered how the Mondiale would fare now Blake would no longer be holding every conceivable meeting there, though of course it was quite possible that Curtis would maintain the tradition. Would he become principal? Surely even Muntz would have to advertise the post? And even Muntz’s governors might feel it incumbent on them to appoint a principal – or, rather, a chief executive – with a modicum of teaching experience.

  Fairfax emerged briskly from the Mondiale, kissed my hand and, rather to my surprise, took his place in the back with me. Despite the yellow grey of his skin, he talked perkily of the improvement in the weather. It occurred to me that I hadn’t even noticed the weather, but now I came to think about it, it was very warm. He asked about my knee, I about his stomach, but he waved my question aside as an irrelevance. Meanwhile the car purred its way the short journey into expense-account Edgbaston.

  This time we used the front door. The bloody dog started baying as soon as Fairfax put his key into the lock. Involuntarily I put my hand on his arm.

  ‘You really are frightened,’ he said, to the accompaniment of great booms from the far side of the door. ‘There’s only one thing to do with fear, my dear: confront it. If Pilot senses you’re afraid—’

  Pilot! I didn’t see Fairfax as the sort of man to read Jane Eyre. Or had he a memory of it from his schooldays? Perhaps he even saw himself as a Rochester figure. I’d have to ask him if he had a horse called Mesrour – or even a mad wife in the attic. And then I realised that he shared his name with the Thornfield housekeeper, the loquacious one who so irritated Jane. Perhaps, after all, he had a sense of humour.

  He stepped inside and was clearly expecting me to follow. Pilot’s barks dropped to a low, sustained growl, which Fairfax did nothing to abate. When I stepped forward, I could see the huge muscles and teeth preparing for action. I couldn’t run away, because he’d follow; I couldn’t go forward. And Fairfax maintained his implacable silence.

  A grandfather clock inside struck eight. Fairfax and the dog waited. At last I found what might pass for a voice. ‘Say hello, Pilot,’ I said. ‘Say hello.’ And stuck out my hand.

  I braced myself for the pain of his teeth sinking into it. Surely Fairfax wouldn’t let him do any worse? But instead, my hand took the weight of his paw, and he sat, presumably waiting to have his head patted. I obliged, and when his silly litle tail started walloping the hall floor I found a little more enthusiasm.

  ‘We’ll go into the snug,’ said Fairfax.

  We followed.

  ‘No, don’t sit yet. He still sees you as a guest. You have to be more than that – to dominate him.’

  Pilot watched with narrowed eyes as I followed Fairfax around the room. We stopped by what turned out to be a drinks cabinet disguised as a set of encyclopedias. I was disappointed – I’d expected better taste.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he said.

  From the tone of his voice I knew there’d be a catch. There was. Pilot didn’t like to see me touching his master’s property. He snarled. So did I – I was sick of the pair of them. ‘Sit down and shut up.’

  He must have recognised the first verb at least, and obeyed.

  ‘Good boy.’

  ‘And good girl,’ Fairfax echoed. ‘Whisky? There’s malt. Or some wine?’ He opened a little fridge.

  ‘I’d rather have red, please.’ I was setting myself the tests now. Could I order Fairfax about, and how would I fare in the room with the dog?

  Fairfax acknowledged the challenge with the nearest thing he’d so far managed to a smile, and I continued to wander round the room. When I thought I’d proved my point, I sat down and patted my lap. Pilot looked interested and padded over, sinking at my feet with his head on my knee. At this point Fairfax came in, and laughed out loud. He proffered an Australian Cabernet Sauvignon. ‘To your taste? Yes, I thought you’d be a New World woman.’ He drew the cork and poured. He made no pretence of drinking it himself, sipping mineral water. ‘You did well, my dear. I wouldn’t have let him hurt you, but you did well. You should face up to your fears, you know, all of them. Confront them.’ He sat down opposite me. Pilot shifted so he could transfer his head to Fairfax’s lap.

  The wine was excellent, a wonderful bouquet and fruity on the tongue. I relaxed, as much as I ever did in Fairfax’s company, and looked at him as he played with Pilot’s ears. For all tonight’s bonhomie, he was a very sick man, I was sure of it: his breathing seemed to be something of an effort.

  ‘You really ought to break out of this rut,’ he said, as if concluding a conversation, not initiating it. ‘It’s clear you’re bored. Everything about you says you’re bored. Your job doesn’t challenge you; you have the personal life of a gerbil. When are you going to get on with living? You only get one life, you know.’

  I couldn’t help laughing, though perhaps it was more with embarrassment than with amusement. And there was some irritation there too. ‘What is this? Some conspiracy? You’re the third person this month to say the same thing. But I don’t see myself as a gerbil!’

  ‘You spend your waking life doing pointless work. Then you curl up in a corner of your cage and go to sleep. I’m an expert on gerbils. My children inflicted generations of them on me. They used to live in aquariums, and die inconveniently. An exercise in pointlessness.’ His face fell into bitter lines. Then he smiled again. ‘They used periodically to escape. We’d find them cowering in corners. They didn’t want to be caught, of course, but when they ran away they’d always go to another corner. I sense you l
ike your corners too, Sophie.’ He reached across and topped up my glass.

  I could think of nothing to say, and to my chagrin found myself flushing. I told myself that it was with annoyance, but perhaps it was because I recognised a truth only a friend should have been privileged to tell me. And of course they had, Aberlene and Chris.

  ‘Risks, that’s what you should be taking at your age. Risks.’ His eyes glowed and his face softened. ‘A respectable job, respectable home in a respectable suburb. I bet even your friends are respectable. Nice women like Aberlene.’

  I swallowed the impulse to tell him to mind his own business.

  ‘Don’t look so sulky. It’s an old man’s privilege to advise the young.’

  I didn’t interrupt to contradict him. In years he might be less than sixty; tonight he looked old.

  ‘My advice,’ he continued, ‘would be to walk out of Harborne tomorrow and put yourself on a plane, go somewhere with some challenge. A one-way ticket, mind. And when you’ve worked your way back here, find a job that’ll make you tingle with excitement. Drive a real car – none of this piddling around on a cycle.’

  ‘Don’t you mean pedalling?’

  We started to laugh.

  ‘Find yourself a decent man. No, you don’t have to marry him, or have children. But someone ought to be out dancing with you, wining you, dining you. And don’t tell me that anyone in your life at the moment fills the bill because I can tell you now it’s quite evident no one does. You’re bored. Agh!’ He pressed his hand against his stomach. No more Old Father Time dispensing wisdom, just a sick man crying for help.

  I was on my feet. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Cloakroom. In the cupboard. In a bubble pack.’