Murder Is Academic (11 page)

‘Cassandra? Are you all right?'

‘Yes, yes, I'm fine.'

Merfyn was leaning forward, looking at me anxiously.

‘Really?'

‘Yes, really. Look, Merfyn, even if
you're
not satisfied with it, I'd like to see what you've produced over the summer.'

The silence between us lengthened.

Eventually he heaved a huge sigh and said, ‘If you must know, I've destroyed what I wrote.'

I stared at him.

‘It's the truth. I've torn it into little pieces.'

‘But – you've got it on disk? Yes?'

‘'Fraid not. I've deleted it from my word processor.'

I sat back. An image flashed into my mind: a little sheaf of white paper tumbling into the darkness of cyberspace, slowly turning over and over, growing ever smaller, like an astronaut whose lifeline has been severed. Gone for ever. I almost missed what he said next.

‘I knew you wouldn't understand.' He shook his head and looked away.

‘Merfyn! Look at me!'

His eyes slid back reluctantly.

‘You're not going to like it,' he said. ‘Conan Doyle told me to do it.'

In fifteen years of teaching, this was the most original excuse for an unfinished piece of work that I had ever heard.

Merfyn was lying back in his chair, legs stretched out, watching the ceiling, apparently relieved to have got this off his chest.

‘Are you out of your mind?' I said.

Scarcely had the words left my mouth when I wondered if this was more than a figure of speech. Could it be something pathological here, a syndrome to which a psychiatrist could give a label? Perhaps Merfyn couldn't help himself? Perhaps he just could not finish this book? Was he even a little bit crazy? He didn't look as if he had lost touch with reality, but then what does a person who has lost touch with reality look like? Did I think he'd be gibbering and picking at his clothes?

‘Not at all,' he said calmly. ‘He came directly through the medium this time. Told me that what I'd written wasn't good enough. Of course, as soon as he said that, I realized. I think I'd probably known it all along. I'll just have to do it again.'

I seized on this. ‘So it was the medium who told you.'

‘No, I told you, it was Conan Doyle acting
through
the medium.'

‘And who is this person, this medium? Does she take money for this?'

‘No, she doesn't. She's very strict about that. Ingrid's a perfectly respectable person, a medical secretary, actually. It's a gift she has. She tries to help people.'

I thought this over.

‘Now, look here, Merfyn,' I said. ‘I'm going to be honest with you. I do not believe that you had a psychic experience.'

Merfyn was shaking his head vehemently.

I raised my hand as he was about to speak. ‘I'm not saying the medium's a phoney. Most likely she acts in good faith. She's extraordinarily adept at picking up signals of agreement or dissent from other people. Tiny things that other people wouldn't notice, OK? So what she's actually giving expression to is what's already on your mind.'

‘That's all very well, Cassandra, but you weren't there. If you had been, I know you'd have been convinced. I
know
it's genuine.'

When a discussion reaches that point, there's really nothing more to be said. I was at a loss. I leaned back in my chair and considered the matter. Should I just leave it at that? But what about Merfyn's book? And the future of the department? There was so much at stake. Would Margaret have let it go? Of course not. I didn't need to go to a séance to know that. So what
would
she have done? She would have tackled the situation head-on.

I sat up and looked Merfyn in the eye.

‘All right. Next time, I'll come with you.'

‘What?' He gawped at me with his mouth open.

‘What's the matter, Merfyn? Not really as convinced as all that? Think the process won't stand up to rational scrutiny?'

He rallied. ‘Not at all. I'd be delighted for you to come. In fact, I'd planned to go again on Saturday. Do you want to come then?'

‘I'll be there.'

Chapter Eight

‘Let's begin, shall we?'

Ingrid gestured towards a round mahogany table in the centre of the room.

‘Where do you want us to sit?' I asked, for all the world as though this were a dinner-party.

‘I'll sit here. If you could be opposite, Cassandra. And – now let me see – if I have Stephen on my left and Merfyn on my right. Does that suit everyone? I think it works best if it goes male, female.'

It
is
just like a dinner-party! I thought. However, there was nothing on the polished table except a small pile of A4 lined paper, a Biro and a couple of pencils. We took our places. Would it be like séances in the movies, where everyone puts their hands on the table? Rather to my surprise it was. We didn't hold hands, but just let our little fingers touch. Ingrid looked round the table, catching the eye of each of us in turn. Then she gave a little nod.

It had begun.

There was a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don't believe in this, I told myself, I don't believe in it. I pressed my little finger against Stephen's and was reassured by an answering pressure. I hadn't protested much when he had insisted on coming. I needed the support of his sturdy scepticism.

The room grew very still. Outside I could hear the swish of cars going past on Milton Road, could even detect the change in engine noise as they went down a gear to turn a nearby corner. The sound seemed only to accentuate the quietness in the room. I stole a glance at Ingrid. Her face was expressionless, her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted. She wasn't what I'd been expecting. Though, come to think of it, what
had
I been expecting? A fey, New Age figure with long hair and floaty garments? A dotty, dishevelled eccentric like Margaret Rutherford in
Blithe Spirit?
Ingrid was a woman of about fifty, discreetly made-up, wearing deep red nail varnish and what looked like a Jaeger suit. It was easy to imagine her as the mainstay of some consultant at Addenbrooke's Hospital.

I looked surreptitiously around the room. It was crowded with furniture and bric-a-brac. There was a pale deep pile carpet and over-stuffed chintzy sofas and chairs, patterned with big splashy flowers. Family photographs in gilt frames stood to attention on every available surface. The curtains were open. Outside it was bright and sunny and the room was warm. To the left, I could see a shaft of sunlight shimmering with dust motes. Into my mind came a memory from childhood, one I hadn't thought of for years. At about the age of six, half-asleep in my bed one morning, I had been convinced that I had seen a fairy. Now I couldn't remember the actual experience, only my conviction and my mother's polite interest. I know I was being humoured, and I was cross. ‘I did see it, Mummy, I did.' ‘I'm sure you saw something, darling.' It was years before I realized that my fairy must have been a mote of dust, floating and glimmering in the sunlight.

Stephen cleared his throat. He pressed his foot against mine. The room was getting stuffy. A trickle of sweat was making its way between my breasts. My eyelids were closing. I jerked them up. How long had we been sitting there? I'd lost track of time. It could have been five minutes, it could have been twenty.

The sun clouded over. The room grew darker. There was a draught across the back of my neck. The sounds in the street were fading away. No, not fading away, but taking on a distant reverberant quality as if I were underwater. Something was happening; the air seemed to be getting thicker, my hands were tingling. I felt queasy. It was as though the air was suddenly alive, electric. A dark pit was opening up in front of me. I grabbed Stephen's hand, but I couldn't help myself. I was falling forward, head-first.

*   *   *

The garden shimmered and rocked in the heat. Sunlight flickered through the trees and threw up dazzling reflections from the pool. I squinted, my eyes watering as I tried to look into the water. This time I had to know what was there. I saw a dark, swollen face. I wanted to scream, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out. A sour wave of nausea was rising up in my throat. I pressed forward, but my limbs felt heavy as if I was trying to force them through something dense and viscous. I was falling back, losing my footing. Suddenly I was gasping and spluttering as the cold water splashed up around me.

*   *   *

I broke the surface of the water. I was clutching someone's hand.

‘Darling, it's all right, I'm here. It's all right, it's all right.'

Stephen's face was looking down at me. I touched my face; it was wet.

‘We were splashing your face to try and bring you round.'

Beyond him I could see two pale discs. I tried to bring them into focus. They were faces. One was Merfyn. What was he doing in Margaret's garden? I couldn't quite place the other one. I felt weak and dizzy and sick.

‘What happened?'

‘You fainted, that's all,' Stephen said.

Merfyn looked shaken. His hair was standing up where he had run his hands through it. Stephen was looking stern, disapproving even. Only Ingrid seemed unperturbed.

‘Don't move until you really feel better,' she said. ‘I'll go and make some tea in a minute.'

‘I thought you were going into a trance,' Merfyn said. ‘Perhaps you're psychic.'

‘Nonsense,' Ingrid said briskly.

‘But is she going to be all right?' he asked.

‘Right as rain. She just needs to put her feet up a bit more.'

Stephen looked puzzled. ‘But, what…'

Now it was Ingrid's turn to look puzzled. She turned to me.

‘You don't know?' she said.

But quite suddenly I did know. The lethargy, the dizziness … A series of images and sensations flashed through my mind: Stephen's wet face pressed against mine, clothes discarded on the bedroom floor, a wine glass shattering.

It wasn't delayed shock after all.

I was pregnant.

*   *   *

An hour later I was sitting on the toilet lid in the bathroom at the Old Granary. We had gone straight home with only a detour to a chemist's. I looked again at the diagram in the leaflet. ‘If two blue bars appear in the larger window, the test is positive.' It was straightforward enough, but somehow I couldn't get a grip on it. I looked at the white plastic wand again. Yes, there were still two blue bars in the larger of the two perspex windows.

Stephen opened the bathroom door.

‘Cass?' he said anxiously.

I nodded and handed him the wand. His gaze moved from my face to the wand and back again. I couldn't read anything in his face except pure astonishment. He looked stunned.

Then he turned on his heels and made for the door. He disappeared through it and I heard his feet on the bare floorboards of the stairs. There was a rumbling sound, like a little avalanche, and a muffled oath. In his hurry he must have dislodged one of the piles of books that lined the treads.

I was only mildly surprised. I went over to the bedroom window to see if Stephen was emerging from the house. Did I really expect to see him get in his car and drive away? I had no idea. I had reached that state of numbness where anything seems possible. Margaret, the least accidental person in the world, had died in an accident; Merfyn believed he was in touch with the spirit world, and now I was pregnant. One thing didn't seem much more surprising than another.

The sun was setting. Shafts of dazzling golden light struck through billowing clouds of pink and orange and dove-grey. The sky had all the splendour of a rococo altarpiece. I was still admiring it when I heard footsteps coming back up the stairs. Stephen appeared with a bottle of Bushmills 5 Years Old Malt and two cut-glass tumblers.

‘My best Irish whiskey,' I said. ‘Are we celebrating?'

‘Well, are we?'

‘I don't know. I simply don't know.'

He poured me a drink. I looked at it doubtfully.

‘You've been drinking up till now.' he pointed out. ‘One more won't make much difference. Anyway you've had a shock. For medicinal purposes…'

‘Just a small one.'

I took the glass of whiskey and breathed in its perfume. I took a sip and let the sweet peaty liquor warm my mouth. When I swallowed it, the heat spread through my chest. It seemed to brace me immediately.

We sat down together on the bed. Stephen took my hand.

‘How could it have happened?' he said.

‘Nothing's a hundred per cent reliable, is it?'

‘You didn't forget to take a Pill?'

‘I don't think so.'

Of course, I immediately began to wonder if I
had
forgotten. Surely, I would have noticed, wouldn't I? But so much had happened, I'd been so busy. Perhaps after all …

‘I suppose you do feel certain?'

‘It says on the packet that the test's 98‰ accurate, but Stephen, that's not all. I've missed a period.'

‘Why didn't you say?'

‘It's not that unusual for me. I thought it was the shock of Margaret's death … stress at work.'

‘But you'll check with the doctor, yes?'

‘First thing on Monday morning.'

The whiskey was leaving a sour taste in my mouth. I handed my glass to Stephen. The shock was wearing off, but so was the bracing effect of the alcohol. I felt the first flutterings of panic.

‘What on earth am I going to do?'

‘
We,
what are
we
going to do?' Stephen corrected me.

‘How can I have a baby now? I've just taken over as head of department, I'm fighting to save it from closure; I can't just suddenly disappear for six months or whatever!'

‘Look, Cassandra, this isn't any time for beating about the bush. So I'll say right away that I'm very willing to get married, help you look after the child and so on, if that's what you want.'