Death at the Alma Mater (6 page)

“Howdy,” he said, by way of greeting.

She smiled and nodded, hoping to grab a Coke from that night’s bartender (the college kept the students on a rota) and make her escape.

The man was beside her now, one large paw extended. His costume—there was no other word—was a grab-bag of influences, with a tuxedo shirt, jacket, and bowtie paired with black Levis and a cowboy belt. The Wild West meets Brideshead. At least he’d left off the chaps.

“Augie Cramb.”

“How do you do. Portia De’Ath.”

“You from around here?”

She turned to accept the Coke from across the counter and said, “Only in a manner of speaking. I’m a Visiting Fellow of the college.”

Augie’s jaw dropped. “You don’t say?” He gave her a playful punch on the arm, nearly spilling her drink. “But, wouldn’t you be called a Visiting Gal?” He threw back his head and laughed uproariously at this witticism. Portia smiled tightly and said, simply, “No.”

Augie threw a fiver on the bar and, taking her arm, led her towards one of the benches. She had two options: Struggle madly as if she were being kidnapped by pirates, or politely acquiesce. The British in her acquiesced.

“I was here as a student, about twenty years ago. They didn’t have fellers that looked like you then, I can tell you that.”

“What were you reading?” she asked politely.

“Law. Damned silly waste of time—it was my daddy’s idea. I always knew I was going into business. Anyway, they sent me an invite for this alumni weekend and it made me nostalgic, you know? Thought I’d come see how the old place was holding up.”

“And what are your impressions?”

“They could use an influx of cash, is my impression. Money’s being spent for show, but the infrastructure is coming apart. They’re gonna lose the chapel roof if they don’t act fast. ’Course I know that’s why we were invited, and I’m happy to oblige.”

“I see. You’re in construction, then?”

This caused another explosion of laughter. He had a truly infectious, puckish laugh, like someone who looked at all of life as suitable material for a comedy. Portia, despite earlier misgivings, found herself warming to him.

“Lord, no,” he said at last. “I just have lots of money, you see. I’ll let someone else repair the roof. It’s why we’re all here, this group, this weekend. We’re all loaded.”

He didn’t appear to be bragging, just stating a fact.

“Anyway, I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for months. Even though flying is less a pleasure these days and more like being evacuated from a country where rioting has just broken out.”

“Do you know all the visitors this weekend?” Portia asked, taking a sip of her drink.

“Yep. Funny thing, that. We had a bumper crop of success stories, I reckon. Most of us what-you-call ‘matriculated’ at different times, but our years at St. Mike’s overlapped. I suppose you’ve heard of Lexy Laurant?”

Portia grinned, nodded. “Yes, I’ve also heard of Weetabix.”

“Exactly. Everyone knows Lexy, if only from the newspapers. Anyway, I haven’t seen her myself yet. She’s here with some playboy type in tow, so the bedder who does her room tells me. That’s because her ex-husband is here, too.”

“You don’t say…”

“And his wife.”

“Oh. Awkward, that.”

Another playful bop on the arm. “You can say that again, Visiting Gal.” Much as she liked him, she was pretty certain if he called her that again she’d wrest the GPS from his hands and beat him about the head with it. “I remember James—Sir James, as I suppose we must now call him,” Augie went on, oblivious. “Everything dress-right-dress with that one. Always knew which fork to use. La-di-da. I saw him and the missus just this afternoon. Too grand for the likes of me, a’course. But I’ll tell you what …” Here he lowered his voice confidentially, decreasing his range to half a mile. “I knew them when. Maybe that’s why they’ve no time for me now. You reckon?”

“I reckon.” At the entrance to the room stood an attractive woman of perhaps forty years of age, of medium height but, in Portia’s estimation, dangerously thin. The woman’s most remarkable feature was her abundant coppery crown of curly hair, which seemed to take on a life of its own as she bounced into the room. “Hello, Augie,” she said. “Long time no see.”

“Gwenn!” he shouted. Augie leapt up and the curly head vanished momentarily inside a bear hug.

“I’m sure they’ve no time for me, either,” she said, once released. “Especially since I’m one of those reporters covering Lexy. Hello.” Here she aimed a hand in Portia’s direction.

“I recognize you from the news, of course,” said Portia. “I should say, from the news desk on the telly—channel YTV, isn’t it?”

Gwenn Pengelly, nodding, continued:

“I’ll be writing a worshipful little piece on Lexy, of course. Too tailor-made for the likes of me, this weekend.”

“I have to admit I’m curious,” said Portia. “What was she like? I mean, back before she became so well known?”

Augie having returned with a drink for Gwenn and a refill for Portia, Gwenn addressed the ceiling, apparently with the effort of remembrance.

“Lexy was lovely,” she said at last, “and she didn’t really know it then. Maybe she doesn’t know it now. Always carefully turned out, nicely dressed and all that. But it was as if she were dressing to please everyone but herself. Had a gorgeous figure and could have gotten away with anything. But she somehow always chose to wear what would give the least offense to the majority. She was the only one at the annual Garden party who wore a hat to match her outfit. You see the kind of thing I mean—the Queen wears clothes like that. It’s only later she began to acquire her reputation as a fashion icon.”

Portia, realizing Gwenn’s description told her little of Lexy’s character, in which she was more interested than in her clothes, merely asked, “And Sir James?”

“Oh, yes, as Augie says, we have to get used to Sir-ing him now, don’t we? What was he like? Good looking, gifted, polished. Lexy, never slow on the uptake in these matters, was after him like a shot. Then India went after him, or he went after her. India won the toss. Quite the scandal, wasn’t it, Augie?”

But Augie, fiddling with the settings on his electronic device, appeared less than interested in this ancient news from the romance front.

“Urghmph,” he said.

As often will happen, one of the subjects of their gossip walked through the door just then. He nodded to the group—was it only guilt that made some of them think it was rather a cool nod? But having been served his drink, he walked over to join them. Portia’s first thought was that Gwenn’s assessment was right: Sir James was handsome in a rather retro, drawing-room comedy sort of way. Intelligence shone from his somewhat hooded eyes, separated by a large Roman nose. His wealth quietly announced itself via his impeccable grooming and the cut of his suit, cunningly designed to make him look both broader in the shoulders and leaner through the waist than he likely was. An embryonic paunch had been discretely disguised and even rendered acceptable by a tailor of some cunning: the Savile Row version of the Aloha shirt.

Just then a woman entered on the arm of the Bursar. Sir James turned towards her, his face transformed by a welcoming smile. Portia had the fleeting impression of a comfortable-looking, middle-class woman, but one who had been made up for a Cinderella outing—she was appearing in the “after” photo so beloved of women’s magazines. Her style of dress, like Sir James’, was of an impeccable pedigree, but somehow Portia suspected she’d be much more at home in trousers, sweater, and boots. The woman continued chatting with a clearly besotted Bursar as Portia wondered at the woman’s appeal. From what she could overhear, the Bursar was talking about accounting methods and balance sheets. Portia heard him call her Lady Bassett. Sir James’ wife, then. She looked completely enthralled in the conversation, and the Bursar’s chest visibly puffed out as he warmed to his theme before such a rapt audience.

With the influx into the small room, Portia felt this was her chance to depart. She did not want to in some way get sucked into dinner in Hall tonight. Too much work to do on my thesis, she thought, without a trace of irony.

But her escape was momentarily blocked by the entrance of a vision of angelic beauty. A woman wearing a gold lamé dress that clung like a mermaid’s skin stood in the doorway. Portia, svelte as she was, wondered how many hours in the gym were required to produce a figure that could have been sculpted from marble. Adding to the illusion of flawlessness, the woman’s complexion, thick as cream, might never have seen the sun; her hair had been artfully arranged into a haloed perfection of light-and-dark blonde strands. This could only be Lexy Laurant.

The goddess, on entering the room, looked immediately, as if instinctively, at Lady Bassett, who offered a weak grimace of acknowledgement on her own freckled, lived-in face. It was probably meant to be a smile, but seemed somehow hostile, even threatening. Lexy returned the grimace, and gave Sir James a passing, haughty glance. Then, with a sniff, she turned heel and shimmered away.

It was altogether a somewhat childish performance, and someone—no one was later sure who it was—was heard to mutter: “God, but don’t you just want to choke her sometimes?”

–––

It was much later that night that Portia saw, or rather heard, Sir James and his wife again. Portia had gone out to collect her takeaway, brought it back to her room (along with the guilty indulgence of a fairy cake from the Elizabeth Barrett Bakery), and watched the BBC on the telly as she ate. Then she’d turned again to working on her novel, and several hours passed without her noticing they’d gone. She’d sat until the room grew quite dark except for the cone of light cast by the desk lamp against the burnished wood of her writing table.

“An atmosphere of tension,” she wrote, then crossed out “tension” and wrote “fear?” She looked at the words in her notebook, bought new that evening from Heffer’s. Why did she feel that so strongly, she wondered? The words had come unbidden, unrelated to the novel. Try as she might, she could not shake off the sudden sense of a fatal change, as of tectonic plates shifting beneath the buildings of St. Mike’s.

She stood and stretched out the ache from the back of her neck, and shook the writer’s cramp from her hands. A walk before retiring was needed; maybe she’d ring to see if St. Just was still at work. She knew the college dinner had ended—along with the perfumed night air, several voices had wafted up through her open window as people left the Hall. She’d smiled as she overheard someone say, commenting on the meal just consumed, “That was pureed spinach, I’m nearly certain, but what was the fowl? Was it seagull, do you think?” The Bursar had struck again. Meals in Hall tended to feature gristle flanked by minute traces of meat. It was the reason so many students became vegetarians. In most cases, it had nothing to do with regard for their friends in the animal kingdom. Oddly, the Bursar was not offended by the unremitting student complaints about the food. To the contrary, he regarded it as the highest compliment to his ability to feed a large number of people for a pittance—a veritable song of praise to his incessant ingenuity.

Portia walked downstairs, past the SCR, now filled with visitors gathering for their after-dinner port, and headed towards the Fellows’ Garden. It was where she often walked, regardless of the weather, to settle her mind at the end of the day.

She’d forgotten the visitors had been granted access to the Fellows’ Garden that weekend, and came upon the couple by surprise. The door into the garden stood open, and they didn’t see or hear her, too engrossed were they in conversation. Instinctively, she stood back until she was hidden from their view.

They sat on a bench that was screened by a trellis, the vines trained into the shape of a heart. The Garden itself was in the design of a French Parterre, with low plantings divided by gravel footpaths and the whole surrounded by walls cloaked in English ivy. The large Garden was overlooked by a first-floor gallery over a cloister walk, with the gallery leading to the dining hall.

“It’s just a feeling I have, James.” The aristocratic, nasal tones of Lady Bassett were unmistakable. “It would be better if we left. I’ll just claim a mysterious virus—you know the kind of thing. We can make it right with the Master at a later date.”

“Perhaps you’re right, India,” His answering voice, low and soothing, also carried clearly to where Portia stood.

“Do you mean it?”

“If it makes you happy, of course I mean it. I’ll have a word with the Master. It’s just a bit awkward, that’s all.”

“I’ll tell you what’s jolly well awkward is Lexy’s being here. I think it’s one of her blasted games, James, I really do. She so loves creating a scene. Don’t you remember?”

He shifted. Something in her tone seemed to have affected him. He sat for a long moment, looking at her, then took her hand in his.

“Let’s talk about it in the morning,” he said, his worry clear in his voice. “If you still want to go then, we’ll leave.”

He stood suddenly. Portia, afraid of discovery, shrank back and started to slip away. Just then, she saw something flash in the shadows of the cloister walk, the shape of a woman in a dress of gold lamé—a most unsuitable costume for undercover observation (and surely a bit of overkill, even for dinner in Hall).

Portia also had the sense that someone else was watching this little tableau of spies and espied. She felt rather than saw a shadow draw back from a window in the library overlooking the Garden, a window which stood open to the summer breeze. A lack of privacy was always a feature of college life. Making her escape, Portia nearly collided with someone as she turned a corner, heading for the main stairs.