Murder Is Academic (28 page)

I rang my doctor's surgery. The line was engaged. On impulse I flicked through the phone book and tried another number.

‘Hello, Dr Pennyfeather speaking.'

‘Jane, hello. It's Cassandra.'

‘Cassandra! How are you?' she said warmly.

Just the sound of her voice was reassuring.

‘Well, actually, I think I may be going into labour. And I'm stuck here at home on my own and it's incredibly foggy. Stephen's on his way, but I don't know how long it will take him.'

‘OK. The first thing is to relax. Now, when did you get the first contraction? And how long between that and the next one?'

I told her.

‘You're right. If the baby's not due for another six weeks, it's most likely a false alarm, and even if it isn't, you've probably got hours. But Cassandra, you must stay put. Don't try to get to a neighbour's. If things suddenly speed up, you need to be where it's warm and light.'

Peasant women in fields. I saw myself lying panting in a ditch like someone in a Thomas Hardy novel. I thought of something that had horrified me when I read it as a student: Tolstoy's terrible description of Princess Lisa dying in childbirth. During my pregnancy I'd managed to put it in the recesses of my mind, but now it all came back to me: the shrieks and helpless animal moans, and at the end of it, the doctor rushing distracted from the room …

‘Cassandra? Cassandra? Are you still there?'

‘Oh, God, what am I going to do? I don't want to be alone.'

‘You won't be. Who's your GP?'

‘I'm registered with Dr Devlin in Ely.'

‘I'm acting as locum in Histon – you've come through to me here on my mobile – so I'm probably as near as anyone. I'll leave now. If the pains get worse or the time between contractions drops down to ten minutes, let me know. Oh, and Cassandra, one last thing: keep yourself occupied. Do some work, bake a cake or read a book.'

After we had stopped speaking, I stood by the window looking out. I couldn't even see the ground. I seemed to be floating in a void. It struck me that being in the womb might be like this. I turned to look into the room: the lamps shed pools of soft light, but the corners of the room were dim. I became aware of a gentle rumbling: it was Bill Bailey snuffling. He was coiled up in a tight ball on the chair, his white nose buried in a tail nearly as thick and bushy as a fox's brush.

I switched on the radio and heard the end of the news and then the weather forecast. ‘There is thick fog over parts of East Anglia. Visibility is extremely poor and driving conditions hazardous. Motorists are advised not to travel unless their journey is essential.'

I heard Big Ben striking six. As if on cue there was another contraction and the phone rang.

‘I'm at Fordham now,' Stephen said, ‘but I can only go at a snail's pace. How are you?'

‘It might be the real thing.'

‘Oh no!'

‘It's all right,' I said with an assurance that I didn't feel. ‘There's a long time to go yet, and I rang Jane Pennyfeather. She's coming over from Histon.'

‘OK. Keep your chin up, sweetie. See you soon.'

In my mind I saw a map of the area and on it two cars crawling towards me from opposite directions, their drivers peering through windscreens, inching forwards into the fog. I went back to the window and gazed out. I thought of one day telling my daughter about how we'd been here alone together in the fog and the night as I waited for her to arrive. Something flickered on the extreme edge of my field of vision. I turned my head. The fog had parted momentarily, and just for an instant I thought I saw a dark shape standing there. The fog closed in again and it was gone. I stared and stared, straining my eyes against the opaque resistance of the fog. I saw nothing. A shrub or a tree, I told myself, that's what it must have been. The fog was disorientating and I couldn't quite think what was at that side of the garden.

I found myself gritting my teeth against the next pang. Remembering the few antenatal classes that I'd managed to get to, I inhaled slowly and relaxed on the out breath. This time the pain ran through my whole body in a spasm that left me aching all over. I glanced at my watch: six fifteen. Jane's advice to keep busy was good – and God knows, I had enough to do – but like a lot of good advice, it was very hard to follow. At this rate, I would be finishing the RAE report in the maternity ward. I wished that I had managed to get hold of the missing box file.

I got up and paced slowly up and down. As with my walk through the fog, the soothing rhythm seemed to summon up a train of thoughts and impressions. Images drifted into my mind: Cathy shaking her head as she talked about Hannah forging her signature, Aiden standing by the rack of books, Merfyn bracing himself for the impact of my anger, Alison and Paul in the back room of their house in Newnham. I concentrated on that picture. I could see Alison's hand on Paul's shoulder, and his smile as he looked up at her. I reached the windowsill and leaned against it, staring out into the fog. It was hard to imagine now that it had ever been the height of summer. I remembered the smell of Paul's cigarette, my head swimming with the scent of the hot summer garden. There was a kind of seismic shift in my mind: one moment I was standing too close to the picture, all I could see were unconnected patches of colour; the next I had taken a step back and the picture had come into focus.

That's it, I thought. I knew now that Margaret's death had not been an accident; I knew who had searched my house and what they had been looking for; I knew why I had collapsed in the library: everything clicked into place. There was a second of sheer intellectual delight at the rightness of it, followed instantly by horrified disbelief. Could it really be true?

If so, the key to the mystery had been at hand ever since the day I had found Margaret's love letters. Clinging to the handrail, I made my way carefully down the stairs to the kitchen. I took the key to the wine cellar out of the hollow book, and got out Margaret's disks. I clambered back up to the study and spread them out on the desk. Most had the names of completed books and articles written on them in Margaret's precise hand. I picked out a disk marked ‘Miscellaneous' and switched on my computer. It gave its usual plangent buzz. Bill Bailey's ears twitched. He sat up and yawned. I slotted the disk into the computer. Many of the folders on it were identified only by a date. I called one up at random and read, ‘Darling, darling M'. I scrolled down to the signature, ‘Your Lucy'. I might have guessed: this had been a truly modern love affair conducted via the latest technology as well as by old-fashioned paper correspondence. There were scores of e-mails – they must have contacted each other every day for months – and Margaret had preserved them as lovingly as if they were letters tied up with red ribbon. I closed the document and ran the cursor down the screen until I found titles like ‘Draft' and ‘Chapter One'. I called up ‘Chapter One'. It was Lucy's PhD thesis. She had shared everything with her lover.

Before I was halfway down the page, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what lay behind Margaret's death.

I scarcely noticed the next contraction.

My train of thought was broken by a piecing yowl. Bill Bailey was sitting by my chair regarding me with a pleading expression. Automatically I got up and made my way downstairs, Bill Bailey racing ahead of me. I was halfway down when I saw the security light go on. As I reached the hall, the doorbell began to peal urgently and continuously as though someone were leaning on it.

Jane at last, thank God, I thought.

Bill Bailey was winding himself around my legs in a frenzy of anticipation as I pulled back the bolt and opened the door.

Alison was standing outside.

*   *   *

I froze with my hand on the doorknob. She was staring at me as if she had expected to see someone quite different.

‘Your hair,' she said hoarsely.

Then, as smoothly as if we had rehearsed it, Bill Bailey shot out, Alison took a step back, and I slammed the door shut. I rammed the bolt home and stood with my back against it.

I could see down the hall into the kitchen. My briefcase was still where I had left it on the table. I forced myself to leave the door, go into the kitchen and turn the case upside down onto the table. A book and a folder fell out, followed by the rope of plaited hair. It hit the table with a slap like an eel being tipped out of a basket. My mobile phone slid out, too. I seized it. Behind me, Alison was knocking gently on the door. My fingers were trembling so much that I couldn't key in Stephen's number. It took me a moment to remember that it was in the phones memory. I called it up. There was a rapid bleeping followed immediately by the click of the phone being answered at the other end.

I said, ‘Stephen, listen to me. Alison killed Margaret and Rebecca, and she's here now, outside. I want you to ring the police. Do you understand?'

He replied, ‘Yes, I understand. What's going on? Are you OK?'

‘Yes.'

‘And the baby?'

‘Much as before. Where are you now?'

‘I've made it nearly as far as the track. I'm going to hang up now and call the police, OK?'

‘Ok.'

I sat down heavily at the kitchen table and put my hand to my side. I tried to calm my breathing.

Alison had stopped knocking on the door, but I could hear her shuffling about outside.

She pushed open the letterbox.

‘Cass, please talk to me.'

Her voice was so flat and strained that I wouldn't have recognized it as hers.

‘I can't let you in.'

‘You don't understand, I won't hurt you. Anyway, it's all over now.' She began to sob.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Paul's dead.'

‘Stay there.'

I went into the cloakroom on the right of the door. There's a little window almost at head height. I looked out. Alison was standing bathed in the intense white light of the security lamp. She made no move towards me but simply turned to face me, passively submitting to inspection. I examined her closely. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her cheeks were wet with tears. Her hair was dishevelled. Her whole body looked limp and heavy with defeat.

I opened the window.

‘What's happened?' I asked.

‘This afternoon. An injection. It was very quick and painless. He'd always intended to go before things got too bad. It just came much, much sooner than we expected.'

I was trying to take this in when a new and quite different sort of pain seized me. Beginning at the sides of my body, it flowed into my belly and rose steadily to a peak. I gripped the rim of the little washbasin and closed my eyes until the pain ebbed away. I opened them again to see Alison staring anxiously at me.

‘What's the matter? Is the baby coming?'

‘No, no, not yet.'

Even as I said it I wondered if it were true. I looked at my watch: twenty to seven. I hadn't timed the last contraction, but the one before that had been at six fifteen. They were getting closer.

We looked at each other in silence for a few moments, then Alison said, ‘When did you realize?'

‘About five minutes ago, oddly enough.'

‘I suppose you found Lucy's thesis on one of Margaret's backup disks. I should have known a lot earlier on that there'd be another set somewhere,' Alison said. ‘She was so bloody well organized.'

She didn't sound bitter, just resigned.

‘But Alison, how did you think you could get away with it?'

‘I nearly did, though, didn't I?' There was no triumph in her voice, only sadness.

‘Did you kill Lucy, too?'

Alison looked astonished. ‘Of course not! I was terribly upset when I heard about the accident. But then…'

She paused. Our eyes met and I was the first to look away. Strangely, what I felt was not anger or fear, but something more like embarrassment, the sort of feeling one gets when one is obliged to comfort someone with their ignorance or bad manners.

‘But then…?' I prompted.

‘Well, after a bit I did begin to wonder. Lucy's work was so good – she'd done a lot of research before she even came to Cambridge – and some of it was almost in publishable form. It seemed such a pity to waste it.'

‘You could have published it under her name.'

‘Oh, what would have been the point of that?' she said impatiently. ‘She was dead, after all. It couldn't affect her career, could it? Whereas for me – it could make all the difference. I was so desperately worried about losing my job. I knew I wouldn't get another one at my age and with no publication record, and I couldn't see how we'd manage without my salary. Luckily the girl who shared Lucy's room was away in the States for the term, so I borrowed a key to their room from the porter's lodge and erased the article from the hard drive of Lucy's computer. I took her backup disks, too, and all her written notes. I thought I'd got everything.'

‘I know what happened next. When you showed Margaret the article, she saw what you'd done. Did she threaten you with exposure?'

‘She invited me round to her house and told me that no-one else knew and that she would keep quiet about it, on condition that I didn't submit the article for publication and that I resigned. Otherwise she'd tell Lawrence and I'd be sacked.'

The pain hit me again like a fist clenching and unclenching low in my belly. I groaned and continued to cling onto the washbasin.

‘Cass? How are you feeling?' Alison's voice seemed to come from a distance.

The pain ebbed slowly away.

I took a deep breath. ‘I'm OK. Go on.'

Alison was too caught up in her story to stop anyway. ‘She said she thought she was being generous. Generous! I begged and pleaded with her, but she was adamant. I was so angry! There we were, sitting by that bloody pool, next to that enormous house that her husband's money had bought. How could she understand anything about our struggle to keep going?'