Death at the Alma Mater (13 page)

“Did anything happen during dinner tonight that struck you?” he asked her now. “Anything at all?”

She thought back to the meal, and what she had been able to hear of the conversation. As usual when people reminisced about events to which others had not been witness, the conversation struck her as a trifle dull, although the others had seemed engrossed—happy, even. They had been talking at some point about Pennying, she remembered, the drinking game they had used to play during Formal Hall using Smarties, with, apparently, disastrous effect. As she had looked up from her meal, they had all been laughing. Someone had slipped a penny in someone else’s drink, making the pennied person obliged to drink up. No wonder the results could be ruinous. Had anyone struck her as being melancholy or distracted? Maybe the Bursar, but that was his default position. No doubt he was worrying about how much the meal was costing. And if a look of any significance passed between Lexy and another of the diners, probably no one could have said.

She related all this to St. Just.

“Sorry not to be of more help. They just seemed to be enjoying themselves. I was a bit distracted myself. The writing, you know—it makes me preoccupied and oblivious to my surroundings, sometimes.”

“It’s all right—you’re doing fine, in fact. Now, everyone was in the SCR when you got there after dinner?”

She said slowly, “I think so. There may have been one or two missing but offhand I can only say there were more there than were not there, if you know what I mean. Excepting Lexy—I did notice, for some reason, she wasn’t there. Well, people did notice Lexy. I saw her sitting in the Fellows’ Garden earlier, just after dinner.”

“Was she alone?”

“No. Sir James was with her.”

“Do you recall in what order everyone left Hall after the meal?”

“Sorry, no, as I was among the first to leave. I wasn’t really part of the group, as I’ve said, so I’m afraid I rather bolted at the first opportunity. Tried to bolt, I should say. I was waylaid by Gwenn Pengelly, and then the Master wanted a word. Anyway, as you pass through the gallery from the dining hall, headed towards the SCR, you overlook the Fellows’ Garden. She was there—Lexy, I mean. As I told you, I went up to my rooms to freshen up, then I came straight down. I imagine others did the same, or visited one of the ground-floor facilities. They all drifted in to the SCR after dinner fairly quickly, is all I can tell you.”

“But by—what—say, nine-thirty? You’d all gathered together? All except Lexy.”

She nodded.

“When you saw Lexy in the Garden, what was her manner?”

Portia shrugged. “She was just sitting quietly. She was with James, as I’ve said.”

“He sat with her?”

“No, he was standing.”

“And he was definitely one of those you saw shortly afterwards in the SCR?” St. Just could not keep the tension from his voice. Sir James would probably have been the last person but one to have spoken with Lexy.

“Yes. Guarding India.”

“And what was his manner with Lexy?”

She considered. “Placating. He seemed to be—oh, I don’t know. Calling on all his reserves of patience. Not angry, but maybe trying to convince her of something, was my impression. Placate her, perhaps. Of course, one couldn’t hear what was said. The windows in the gallery overlooking the Fellows’ Garden are sealed closed. Anyway, he was definitely in the SCR dogging India when I arrived, which was fairly quickly. So he can’t have stayed long with Lexy. Not long enough for … you know. Which in any event he wouldn’t have done in such a public spot.”

“Try to remember who else was definitely there in the SCR.” The leather chair creaked like a wooden ship under St. Just’s weight as he sat forward.

She sighed. “One wishes one weren’t so distracted by that blasted thesis—and whatnot—all the time. Let’s see, the Reverend Otis was there, of course. I was talking to him, you see, and I had my back to the room … I was rather trying to dodge the Texan, if and when he came in.”

Fear thought St. Just looked inordinately pleased to hear it.

Portia went on, “Let me think about it some more—maybe there was a voice or two I heard and could recognize. I’ll try to make a list, give you the approximate times I think they came in, or at least—and this is very different, isn’t it?—when they were in the room talking. But I wasn’t wearing my watch and I was facing away from the clock on the mantelpiece, so even times will be very rough estimates. At some point Geraldo joined us—the Reverend Otis and myself—for a moment. I’m sorry, that’s all I can recall.”

St. Just said, “So, what do we have? At some point after dinner—”

“It ended at nine-fifteen, but some people hung about in Hall, talking.”

“Right. Let’s say you saw Lexy and James in the garden at nine-twenty—would that be roughly accurate?”

She nodded. “Perhaps a minute or so later.”

St. Just folded his arms across his chest, and she noticed the elbow was giving out on the light sweater he wore. Typical. St. Just was always scrupulously clean in meticulously pressed clothing, but some of his wardrobe was so worn Oxfam would have rejected it.

“So, some time after that,” he said, “Lexy left the garden, we assume for the boathouse. We’ll need to ask Sir James if she left him or if he left her sitting there, and find out if any other witness saw her leave. We’ll also need to look for signs that she was dragged from where she’d been killed—say, the garden. The killer had plenty of time, as it turns out, before she was found, but dragging her about would run the risk of exposure—as you point out, the garden is much too public a spot for that to be a likely scenario. Much more likely she was killed at the boathouse. But—why was she there? Just wanting to be near the river? Sergeant Fear, I’ll need a diagram of the grounds. Get someone to clock the distance from the garden to the river. She could have been carried, of course. She was a little thing, and we have at least one strapping candidate who could have lifted her, even dead, as easily as carrying a large toddler. Your Argentine, for example,” he said, with an amused glance at Portia.

“He is hardly my Argentine,” she said firmly.

St. Just grinned happily and went on. “So, she was meeting someone, or someone found her. She met up with someone, by accident or design.” He sighed. “We’re not getting very far yet. But thank you, Portia. That was invaluable. We’d better have a word now with the young man who found her.”

GOLDEN LADS AND GIRLS

The young man who
answered the summons to the Master’s study also fit the profile of someone strapping enough to carry Lexy Laurant’s body without effort. He was perhaps twenty years of age, tall and blonde in a way that recalled the genetic legacy of Norse invaders of the medieval British Isles. He wore his hair long in front, razored in the back, and he had a coltish habit of tossing the thick strands off his forehead with a shake of his head. He sported the British white-man’s tan, a darkening of the fair, rosy complexion already reddened by the icy blasts of winter.

He was trying, St. Just thought, to look man-of-the-worldish, as if discovering corpses were pretty much a monthly experience in his adventurous and full young life. St. Just felt sorry for him—the first corpse is always the hardest.

He anticipated St. Just’s first question by denying any real knowledge of Lexy, and spent most of the interview painting her as a figure lurking on the periphery of his vision. This would be normal for one of his youth. She was not that much older, but perhaps just old enough to hold little fascination for a young man barely in his twenties. Still, by Hollywood standards, she wasn’t too old for him by a long shot. Realistically, however, Sebastian struck St. Just as too immature for the role just yet, barely out of the pram. Lexy may have been immature in her own way, but still: Sebastian belonged to a different young world entirely, and it was hard to imagine what common ground these two might have found. St. Just hoped he wasn’t giving in to some creeping old fogey-ism: He could be wrong, completely out of touch with the current mores.

“As I say,” Sebastian Burrows reiterated, “I barely knew her.”

“Even though she was once married to your stepfather?”

“Precisely. She was once married to my stepfather, that’s all.” Again, he shook back the golden locks. St. Just wondered if it were a nervous affectation, or an indicator he was lying. “No blood tie.”

“How often had you met her?”

Sebastian answered indirectly.

“I know her mainly through the tabloids and magazines, and a few chance sightings in London.”

“Where, precisely?”

He named several nightclubs, including Boujis, that St. Just knew were all the latest rage. Sebastian could be lying about how often he met her, thought St. Just. They might frequent the same nightclubs very often. Run into each other, get to know each other. It wasn’t impossible …

“When you saw her, on these extremely rare occasions then,” said St. Just, “it would help us awfully to get your impressions. Of her character.”

Sebastian shrugged. “I don’t know, I tell you.”

“Do try.”

“All right, my impressions, however fleeting: She was kind of neurotic, you know? She liked excitement, noise, people around her. She liked to be the center of attention. This is only my impression from her look, the way she dressed. I didn’t really notice her, it’s just that she seemed to be everywhere I was for a while.”

As he didn’t seem to want to budge from the “hardly knew her” line, St. Just moved on to ask him about the events of the evening. Immediately, he sensed a shift in Sebastian’s tone. The reminder of the murder sobered him. In response to his request that Sebastian outline his movements, Sebastian said, “That’s easy. I have a schedule I rarely stray from.”

Why was he here during the summer? St. Just wondered. Did he have nowhere else to go? But Sebastian was speaking:

“I’m in training,” he said, with a little glow of pride. “I stick to rather a rigid daily schedule so I can be sure to get my time in. This night I went into the water at about nine, after my workout. Later than I liked—you don’t want to be caught out there after Lighting Up. Penalties and so forth. I really do try to play by the rules. I want to compete at a very high level one day, you see.”

“And Lighting Up on this particular night was when?”

“21:51 hours.”

Sergeant Fear’s head came up from his notebook. “So precise?” he asked.

“It’s the time at which the sun sets to ninety-four degrees below the zenith, if you want the official definition,” Sebastian informed him. “But God help you if you ignore Lighting Up or Down. Not a good idea, in any event. You’re liable to row straight into the bank on a dark night.”

“And so you finished your practice and arrived at the boathouse … ?”

“Just before. Say nine-fifty. May I go now?”

“How do you keep track of the time so precisely as you’re sculling? You’d have to stop to look at your watch, wouldn’t you?”

Sebastian shook his head.

“The curfew warning still chimes at nine forty-five, although it’s mainly a holdover from the very old days. There’s a warning chime, as I say, followed in fifteen minutes by the final chime—curfew.”

“Tell us what happened. You finished your practice, returned to the boathouse, and …”

“And I was carrying the boat and equipment from the river when I saw her, sort of crumpled there. Well, you know. I went over, took one look, dropped everything, and ran for help.”

“You didn’t have a mobile phone with you?”

“Funnily enough, I did have it in my pocket, but I don’t usually. I mean, I’m out there working, not taking calls, and if the worst should happen I wouldn’t want to see the mobile end up in the water. That’s why I didn’t think of it, I suppose—I don’t normally have it with me on these occasions. I just ran for help, which was less than two or three minutes away, in any event.”

“Did you see anyone about? At any time?”

He shook his head. “No.”

St. Just sighed. Not much help there. “We’ll need a signed statement from you to this effect, of course,” he told Sebastian. “Now, you say you didn’t know Lexy too well, but the same must not be true of your stepfather, her ex-husband?”

“How would I know what was true of him?” said Sebastian, staring down peevishly at the Persian carpet. “I barely saw him as I was growing up. I was sent away to school, and he was not really interested in ‘bonding,’ to use that hideous expression, when I was at home. No more was I. Frankly, I was grateful that he didn’t come over all fatherly, trying to teach me how to fish or shoot or whatnot.”

“He didn’t try to be your friend, or anything.”

“God, no—not really. That would have been worse, wouldn’t it, by far?”

A fate worse than death. St. Just supposed he could see the boy’s point of view.

“And your relationship with your mother?”

“What about it?” asked Sebastian, still addressing the carpet. St. Just noticed his hands as they rested on the arms of the chair—gripped the arms, rather. They were a rower’s hands, large and capable, to match his rower’s physique. Strong shoulders, arms, and legs.

He also had the hard narrow waist of a rower; St. Just could see the muscles of the boy’s flat stomach clearly outlined against the thin material of his shirt. St. Just remembered from his own rowing days that it was the best exercise of all, as it worked every muscle in the body. Sebastian, he thought, could practically have choked Lexy one-handed without breaking a sweat.

“Did your mother’s marriage to Sir James affect your relationship with her in any way?”

It didn’t seem to occur to Sebastian to wonder what this had to do with Lexy’s murder. St. Just didn’t really know himself, but was trying to get a better sense of this young man.

“Not really. I was at school, as I’ve told you.”

“Was their marriage a success, did you think?”

Sebastian looked genuinely baffled at this question. It surprised him so that he dragged his gaze away from the carpet at last and looked quizzically at St. Just.

“I’ve really no idea at all. I think so.”

St. Just thought, after some reflection, that was probably true. The doings of these two oldies was probably too far outside the boy’s realm of interest. St. Just may as well ask Sebastian for his views on the comings and goings of the Hapsburgs.

“But, you must have formed some opinion of James, at least insofar as his appropriateness as a mate for your mother?”

Sergeant Fear also wondered at the direction of St. Just’s questions. Did it matter what the boy thought of the parents? He shrugged and continued to jot down notes in case it did.

“I’ve told you. I rarely saw him or my mother. He’s a nice enough chap, I suppose. I got along with him well enough. He was clever, as I said, never to try to play the heavy-handed father bit. You know, come over as all in charge or giving unwanted advice or interfering or anything. Well, he did once try to give me advice on women and that was quite an awful moment, but we shouldered through even that somehow. He talked about how they had to be wooed and courted, for God’s sake, like he was reading from some eighteenth-century guide for the gentry. I just let him get it off his chest and then I thanked him kindly. I think he realized it was a failed experiment and it was never repeated.”

“So, your love of rowing—not something you got from James, then?”

This was greeted with a snort of derision. “God, no,” he said again. “If it doesn’t have hooves and a saddle, James is not terribly interested anymore.”

Sergeant Fear began to interject a question.

“When you were out in the rowboat, did—”

Sebastian turned to him and said, through gritted teeth, “It is not a rowboat. It is called a scull.” A sudden alertness came over the boy as he was turning back around. He cocked his head and said to St. Just, “If that’s all, I have to go.” He pulled a mobile from a pocket of his jacket and began fiddling with the keys. For this we grew opposable thumbs, thought St. Just, watching him.

“Put that away,” he said mildly. “We’re not done here.”

With elaborate reluctance, Sebastian obeyed. St. Just could almost see the scales in the boy’s mind, weighing the pros of getting out and away quickly with the cons of making an enemy of the police. Still, he apparently couldn’t resist muttering, “The law has nothing to do with me. Laws were invented by old white men.”

St. Just, who had heard many a criminal espouse much the same philosophy, said nothing, refusing to be drawn into this sophomoric debate.

They talked awhile longer with Sebastian but elicited little of note: The young man again insisted that he scarcely knew Lexy. St. Just suddenly wondering where the scull that lay next to Lexy’s body had come from, Sebastian reluctantly admitted he always left the boathouse unlocked while he sculled, but locked away the equipment on his return.

“Except this time, of course. I just ran for help.”

“Surely that’s inviting theft,” said St. Just. “To leave the place open while you’re on the water.”

Sebastian, admitting as much, said it was “too much hassle and besides, I’m not gone all that long.” St. Just gathered that as the property wasn’t his, Sebastian wasn’t overly concerned what happened to it.

As Sebastian was leaving, he stopped and turned back into the room, his tall frame dwarfed by the ancient panel door.

“When will I be able to get back into the boathouse?” he asked. “I’m in training, as I told you. That’s why I’m staying over this summer.”

“Oh, not the chance to catch up with the parents that’s the big draw then?”

Sebastian rolled his eyes and screwed up his face in the time-honored tradition of youthful contempt for the company of elders.

“No,” he said flatly.

“A murder investigation takes precedence,” St. Just said mildly.