A Matter of Trust (10 page)

It was a technique he'd used often in the past, when questioning witnesses. When they thought you weren't looking at them, Lisle had often caught expressions on their faces that they'd have given anything to hide.

The Principal's face, however, was simply blank.

‘Trauma?' Sin Jun echoed questioningly.

‘From
a fall. At the moment it's too dark to see, and we can't examine the body properly until it's been seen by a medical man. So we have no idea what injuries Sir Vivian may have sustained. And you had noticed there's a window open up above, hadn't you, Sir?' Lisle asked calmly.

Sin Jun actually flushed, and hoped the darkness would hide it. ‘Yes. I had, as a matter of fact.'

‘Did Sir Vivian, in fact, have rooms in this building?' Lisle pressed, unaware that Jim Neill was listening avidly, an open look of admiration on his face.

Lisle had certainly caught the old feller napping there!

‘Wolsey—this building is named after the famous cardinal. And yes, he did. On the third floor,' Sin Jun, having been caught out once, now felt the need to over-compensate. ‘When we heard of his heart trouble, we were going to move his rooms to the ground floor, but he was more or less retired, and hardly ever came to his rooms here, so he insisted that we were not to bother. I'd hate to think that climbing the flights of stairs brought on an attack,' Sin Jun said, perfectly genuinely. ‘But I suppose it might have been like that. If he'd felt breathless, he'd almost certainly have gone to the window to get some air. Perhaps he leaned forward to breathe deeply, had a dizzy spell and fell. But I hope not.'

Lisle
ignored all this very convenient guesswork, and glanced around. So far, no inquisitive student had appeared on the scene, and the grounds remained deserted. But they wouldn't have been so earlier on.

‘Did anyone see him come in, do you know?' he asked. ‘Did he attend this party of yours?'

‘Oh he must have done. He was certainly invited, and I can't think what else he'd be doing in College otherwise. But I don't remember talking to him—but then, I was mostly taken up with the guest of honour. A famous fashion model, and all that,' Sin Jun said, realising he was suddenly waffling, and lapsing into an embarrassed silence.

‘I don't think we need to go into all of that at the moment, Sir,' Lisle said, hiding a smile.

Sin Jun could appreciate the economy of the inspector's questioning, and even admire the ruthlessness of his reasoning. And under any other circumstances, he'd be gratified and fascinated with the DI's performance. As it was, he shuffled uncomfortably under the younger man's gimlet eye.

Lisle sighed. Until the doctor had been and gone it was useless even speculating on what might have happened to the victim. ‘When was the body discovered exactly?' he asked instead. ‘And can I just get you to confirm for me officially that the deceased is in fact Sir Vivian Dalrymple?'

His
lips twisted. So many Lords, and Sirs, and learned Fellows. Give him a straight forward crime with normal, everyday working class people any day! Lisle glanced up, saw the look of misery on the Principal's face, and felt instantly guilty.

‘Yes, Inspector, it's definitely Sir Vivian. He was a very well liked man. I found him charming. His wife, as I believe I already told you, is in hospital at the moment. I don't know how I'm going to tell her about this.'

Lisle put the notebook away, feeling like a right bastard. None of it showed on his face, however. ‘Where is this Tom Jenkins?' he asked instead.

‘He's with his wife in the lodge. Shall I go and get him?'

‘I think I'll follow you there, if you don't mind. Jim, you stay here with the body. The doc's on his way—I want to know straight away if he has any preliminary guesses as to cause of death for us.'

After all, they must dot all the i's and cross all the t's for the Chief Constable, mustn't they?

‘Sir,' Jim nodded, and took up a self-important stance beside the body. Lisle nodded to several of the uniformed constables, standing about the quad at strategic points as he passed them. Their quiet and deferential, ‘Sir,' followed the two men as they walked back towards Becket Arch through the moonlit
gardens.

Lisle glanced at the rose gardens, the croquet lawn with its hoops and elegance, the pond and with its expensive fish, and remembered, when all was said and done, that the people living here were just that.

People, like anyone else. People, like him.

Tom Jenkins opened the door within a few seconds of their knocking, and nodded at Sin Jun before beckoning them in, turning interested and questioning eyes towards Lisle.

‘Principal,' Tom said, and Lisle wondered if calling the Principal ‘Sir Roland' had been some sort of social gaffe, then reflected tiredly that he really didn't give a damn.

‘Tom, this is Detective Inspector Jarvis. Inspector, this is Tom Jenkins, our porter.'

Lisle looked at the man, guessing him to be somewhere in his mid-fifties. He was solidly built, and the eyes now watching him were steady, if still slightly shadowed, no doubt due to the residue of shock. But, all in all, he made a favourable first impression.

‘Did you know the deceased, Mr. Jenkins?' Lisle asked, wasting no time on pleasantries.

‘Yes. I did. But not well. Sir Vivian wasn't around college much of late,' Tom confirmed, his voice calm but still just a shade unsteady. ‘When I first saw him, I didn't recognise him. Not right off. He was lying face down, see?'

Lisle nodded. Although he had nothing to go on yet—no clues, no doctor's examination,
no
eyewitnesses, nothing but the fact that there was a dead body where there shouldn't be one—Lisle was beginning to feel that there was far more to this than at first met the eye. Call it instinct—call it experience. Of course, he'd go only on the facts. But he'd be very careful to make sure he
got
all the facts first.

Lisle was not naive. He hadn't climbed as high as he had by not watching his back and knowing the rules. And Lord Roland was a friend of the Chief Constable. The Principal had a potentially embarrassing body on his hands, and had called his old friend for help. The message was clear, to all concerned.

Be quick. Be discreet. Be careful.

But Lisle wondered if it was going to be that simple. Already there was a mystery. If he'd fallen out of the window, how could he fall, face first, right up against a wall? He wasn't much on physics or the laws of velocity or aerodynamics, but surely the body wouldn't have fallen in the position in which it was found?

He gave a mental shrug. No doubt he'd find out soon.

Lisle stepped further into the flat's small living room, then turned in the doorway, subtly blocking the way. ‘Thank you, Sir Roland. I take it you have rooms in college where I can reach you, should I need anything further?'

Sin Jun took the obvious dismissal in good part, gave the inspector directions to his rooms
in
Webster, and assured him he'd be available any time, night or day.

He left, still feeling deeply uneasy. There was a rough edge about Lisle Jarvis that was more than the sum total of his looks, Sin Jun was sure.

Inside, Tom was thinking much the same thing, as he gave the policeman a good long look. The man was built, there was no doubt about it. He obviously worked out, and had that air of being as fit as a butcher's dog that only those with hard-earned stamina were able to generate. His clothes weren't expensive, but he looked good in them. As his old mother would have said—DI Jarvis was a man's man.

His short-cropped hair was a rich shade of nut-brown, and wide hazel eyes looked at Tom with no discernible expression in them at all. He looked tough. He had a pugnacious chin, a nose that had been broken once, perhaps in his younger days, when he'd patrolled the streets and had had to handle some thugs. His forehead was broad and strong.

All in all, the overwhelming impression was one of toughness. But instead of feeling intimidated, Tom felt reassured. It was a reaction that Lisle inspired in most people.

Except in crooks of course. Crooks were never pleased to see Lisle Jarvis heave into view.

‘So, Mr Jenkins,' the voice was softer than he'd expected, ‘I know this has been a
nasty
shock for you, but perhaps you can tell me exactly what happened, right from the beginning?'

Without being asked, Lisle sank into one of the two old but comfortable armchairs that flanked a gas fire, and got out his notebook. Tom took the one facing him, and glanced uneasily towards the closed door that led to the main bedroom. It had taken a good deal of persuading to get his wife to go to bed, and he wondered if she was listening at the door.

‘Well, Sir, it was like this,' he began, struck by the air of tough competence about the policeman, and for the first time that night began to breathe easier.

Carefully, missing out nothing, Tom took him through his actions that night, whilst Lisle, in rapid and fluent shorthand, took it all down. Only when Tom had finished did he start asking the questions that intrigued him most.

‘Did you see Sir Vivian arrive tonight?'

‘No, Sir. But then, if people don't come into the lodge, I wouldn't always notice them going by. I have the switchboard to see to, you see, and that puts my back to the window. Then again, Sir Vivian could have come in by either of the side gates. And it was a very busy night, what with the big Prize Dinner and everything. I might not have remembered him, in the crowd, even if I'd seen him.'

Lisle sighed. ‘Right. When was the last time, to your knowledge, that Sir Vivian last came in
to
college?'

But Tom didn't know. Weeks, he thought.

‘And on your rounds, you saw or heard nothing out of the ordinary?'

‘No, Sir.'

No, Lisle thought, he wouldn't. He would probably learn nothing much until morning—when he got the chance to question the others, and build up a picture of Sir Vivian's last few hours.

He glanced at his watch, saw that it was getting on for the early hours, rose and thanked Tom and let himself out. By now, the doctor would have arrived. He'd have to supervise the removal of the body, do a preliminary check of the victim's college rooms, then ask the Principal if he could make some sort of announcement at breakfast that the police wanted to speak to anyone who'd seen or spoken to Sir Vivian at any time on the day or evening of his death.

So far, he had no clear idea about the character of the dead man. The Principal had said he'd been a well-liked man. But then, he would, wouldn't he?

Half of him hoped for a simple and straight forward ‘natural causes' verdict. Another part of him sensed something more sinister was afoot. He sighed and glanced uneasily around the dark and deserted quad.

*           *           *

In
her bed in Holywell, Nesta stirred and sighed in her sleep.

The dark stranger was back.

CHAPTER FIVE

Nesta rolled out of bed, sleepy-eyed and yawning. It was a grey sort of day, with a drizzling cold sky guaranteed to depress even the most bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

She brushed her teeth and changed, shivering, into her faithful pair of denims. She reached automatically for a striped green, blue and gold sweater that did wonders for her geometric cut of deep red hair. The green was the exact same shade of emerald as her eyes.

Nesta couldn't afford to have a huge wardrobe, but what she had looked good on her. Unlike a lot of redheads, she actually liked her colouring, and had learned, over the years, how to dress to suit it.

She made herself a cup of coffee and shivered some more. The one constant thing about cheap rented accommodation, she'd always noticed, was how inefficient their heating was, come the winter time.

She left the cheerless bedsit, shrugging into her see-through plastic raincoat as she went, and walked through the gloom towards
a
little coffee shop near the centre of town. She didn't mind the rain, and rather liked the cheerful hues of the umbrellas, the bright car headlights, and the general feeling of all-mucking-in-together, that assailed the British public in times of downpour.

She waited patiently in line for the local morning paper at the nearby newsagents, and carried it into the cafe with her. The cheap and cheerful yellow Formica tables and the gum-chewing insouciance of the waitress combined to lift her mood even further. She ordered a coffee, a couple of rounds of toast, and settled back in her window to seat to peruse the news. Wherever she was, Nesta always took a local paper. The national press more often than not carried only news of disaster, death and destruction. Or tales of the rich and glamorous, whose lifestyles failed to move her, or even touch her. She much preferred the day-to-day stories of ordinary,
real
people.

She read and munched and sipped quite happily for half an hour. A local lady had just retired as Dinner lady at a primary school, after 51 years of solid service. Fifty-one years! Nesta couldn't imagine working in the same place for so long. A local boy scout had saved a neighbour's dog from drowning. A charity worker had died at the ripe old age of 92, and the town's grateful residents were busy fund-raising for a memorial in his honour.

Because the newspaper's deadline had long
since
passed when news had begun filtering in about a death at St Bede's, a local reporter, roused from his bed, had only just been able to cobble together the bare details. And, because it was too expensive for a small paper to chop and change the front page once the presses had been set, Nesta almost missed the four inch paragraph, tucked away on page 7.

As it was, the dark bold little side headline caught her eye, in between a piece on a village fete, and an advertisement for car tyres.