The Blasphemer: A Novel (10 page)

The lowered morale was reflected in the questions:

‘What should we do?’

‘We should wait.’

‘Yeah, let’s wait.’

‘What’s the point in waiting?’

‘What’s the point in not waiting?’

Daniel found a catch that opened the barrel of the flare launcher, slotted a cartridge into the breech and snapped it shut. The others stared at him as he held the gun in the air and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He worked out how to cock it and tried again.

THE VICE PROVOST STEERED HIS BIKE LEFT INTO GOODGE STREET
and grimaced. A pneumatic drill was biting into the road ahead of him and this meant he had to cycle through a cloud of cement powder. With his nose creased up in disgust, he weaved in and out of the cones that were corralling two lanes of traffic into one before coming to a skidding halt in the slush, his brakes squealing in protest. A workman was holding a red STOP sign up in front of him, blocking his path. His nostrils flared wider. They had detected the smell of beefburger and processed cheese – the workman was eating a Big Mac still half wrapped in greaseproof paper. There was another smell, more cloying and pungent. The vice provost turned his head and saw he was alongside a vat of boiling tar, its fumes becoming visible as they met the cold afternoon. He stared at the workman over the top of half-glasses, and, without changing his sight line, slipped his hand under his overcoat, as if going for a revolver.

A tall and bony man with a permanent air of desiccation and gloom, the vice provost contrived to look older than his forty-nine years. It was partly to do with the Crombie overcoat and weathered fedora he was wearing; partly with his tarnished sit-up-and-beg bike. Mostly it was to do with his old-fashioned glasses. He had begun wiping the cement dust from them with the silk handkerchief he had retrieved from his pocket when the sign swivelled round to show the word GO written in green. The driver in the car
behind him sounded his horn. The vice provost’s shoulders rose as his neck sank. He put his glasses back on, one arm at a time, and turned his coat collar up before peddling off again. As he passed through the wrought-iron pedestrian gate at the side of the Porter’s Lodge and tasted the clean air of the college quadrangle, his expression did not adjust. He resented having to come into college on a Saturday afternoon for an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Senate Committee.

Despite the euphony of his name – Laurence Wetherby – the vice provost preferred to be known by his title. Wetherby was his second preference. The fashion for colleagues and strangers to address one another by their first names was, to him, an abomination. The only people who had called him Laurence were his parents, now dead, and the woman to whom he had once been briefly engaged – but she had not dared call him Larry. He had not been known as Larry at school either. Nor had he had a nickname. If his students had a nickname for him now, it had never reached his ears.

A CCTV camera on a metal pole followed him as he mounted a disabled ramp – to avoid a pool of slush – and peddled along for twenty yards, past leafless trees set in concentric circles of cobbled stone, before parking in the frosted metal of a vacant bike rack. He glanced up at the white clock above the Porter’s Lodge before dismounting and slipping off his bicycle clips.

The riding of this bike, the wearing of these clips, the way he handled his fedora – a finger and thumb on the worn and shiny felt either side of the groove – all, for him, were deliberate acts of resistance against modernity. He knew they were futile, but he reasoned that everyone had to draw up their own battle lines and these happened to be his. In Wetherby’s world,Victoria was still on the throne, a mass was still said in Latin and the horrors of contemporary syntax – contractions, split infinitives, hanging participles – held no dominion.

Wetherby’s suspicion of the modern informed almost every aspect of his life, especially his work. As a professor of music he was obliged to teach modules on composers such as Birtwistle and
Schoenberg, but he found their experiments in atonality unbearable, almost as bad as free jazz, and he made this prejudice obvious to his undergraduates. For him, classical music ended with Mahler, Elgar and, if he was feeling generous,Vaughan Williams. On this, as in so many areas of his life, there was no room for debate or compromise.

As he was threading a bike chain through the spokes of his back wheel, a security guard came panting up behind him. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ the guard said in a bouncing but well-educated voice. ‘You didn’t show your pass.’

Wetherby did not look at the man as he padlocked his chain. Instead he spoke to his own shoulder, his gentle, croaky voice barely carrying the required distance. ‘You must be new here.’

‘I’ve been here almost two years, sir.’

Wetherby turned as he considered this. The guard had a florid complexion and a balding head. As compensation for this he had grown bright white shaving-brush sideburns. ‘Of course. That coat. You look different in it.’ He reduced his eyes in their deep bony sockets as he searched the guard’s donkey jacket for a name badge, but could not see one. What he saw instead was a poppy.

‘I’m under instructions from the provost not to allow anyone in without showing their pass.’

Wetherby tried to disguise his irritation. ‘I am about to have a meeting with the provost. I shall compliment him on the diligence of his security staff.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Thinking the matter dealt with, Wetherby picked up the scuffed leather music bag that was sitting in the basket attached to his handlebars and began to walk away.

The guard called after him. ‘Your pass, sir?’

Wetherby looked at his watch and turned again. ‘You are going to make me late.’

‘Sorry, sir. It’s a new rule. No exceptions.’

With a heavy sigh,Wetherby set his bag down on a small drift of cement-coloured snow and pulled out some examination papers, a copy of
The Times
folded open on a page with a completed
crossword, and a bundle of sheet music. His college ID card was not there. He patted his pockets and checked his wallet before turning to face the guard once more with a spavined smile that exposed the gaps in his teeth.

‘I can vouch for him.’ It was one of Wetherby’s students, her Chinese accent muffled by the purple and brown college scarf covering her mouth. She was descending the steps of the Portico two at a time. In her hand was her ID card.

‘Thank you, miss,’ the guard said. ‘You’ll have to sign him in. If you’ll come back to the Lodge with me, I’ll issue a temporary pass.’ The guard was enjoying this, Wetherby thought: something about the way the man was looking at him; about his voice not fitting his station. When they reached the Lodge, the guard asked him his name.

‘Wetherby … Professor Laurence Wetherby,Vice Provost,Trinity College, London.’ He paused for effect. ‘I have been teaching here since I was twenty-four.’ Pause. ‘I am forty-nine now.’ Pause. ‘That is a quarter of a century.’

The guard was undaunted. ‘And could I have your pass for a second, miss.’

The student handed it over. The guard tried to read out the name.

‘Don’t worry, no one can pronounce it,’ the student said. ‘It’s Hai-iki buizi Yzu.’

‘Thank you, miss. It is a bit of a mouthful.’

The student grinned. ‘Think of the sound of a wasp trapped in a jar.’

The guard grinned back. ‘Thanks, I’ll remember that.’ He wrote the name down carefully and handed Wetherby his temporary pass. ‘There we go. Sorry to have kept you, professor. I do recognize you now. Must have been the trilby.’

‘Fedora.’

‘If you could remember your pass in future it would be a big help.’

Wetherby cast an unenthusiastic eye around the Porter’s Lodge. As he took in the clipboard, the rack of keys, the boiling kettle and
the pictures of the guard’s family – three teenage children – he nodded to himself. There was also a collection of books about the First World War, a model of a Vickers machine gun and a mug with a poppy on it. When he turned his gaze back upon the guard he fancied he caught the edge of a smile.

‘Got one yet?’ The guard was rattling a red, plastic poppy-appeal collection box in one hand and holding out a bunch of poppies in the other.

‘Yes,’ Wetherby said.

‘I give tours of the Flanders battlefields during the summer holidays,’ the guard said.

‘Do you.’

‘Ever fancied doing one?’

‘No.’

The guard put the collection box back on the shelf. He looked deflated. ‘Soon you won’t be able to get in without an electronic pass,’ he said. ‘They’re installing automated barriers.’

‘I look forward to it with vigorous anticipation.’

Hai-iki was back outside, walking towards the Octagon Building under the central dome. She was rubbing her arms. When Wetherby caught up with her he said. ‘Must be annoying, people making fun of your name like that.’

‘You get used to it.’

‘You should not have to.’

The student cocked her head as she reflected on this. ‘It can be a bit frustrating.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘I tell you what I haven’t got used to … this weather.’

‘I would prefer a heatwave to this, and I despise heatwaves.’

The student laughed. ‘I heard you talking on Radio 3 last night.’

Wetherby gave her a sidelong glance. He knew she had a music scholarship – she was a highly promising pianist – but hadn’t paid her much attention until now. She had clear skin and a black fringe, as well as a soft, expressive mouth. She wasn’t obviously attractive and she barely came up to his chest – which made him feel selfconscious about his own height – but she had the confident, hip-rolling walk of a long-legged model. ‘You will be the only
person in this place who did hear me,’ he said gently. ‘These philistines,’ he nodded towards the staff room, ‘would not know where to find the Third Programme on the dial.’

‘The Third Programme?’

‘Radio 3. I am still in denial about the name change.’

‘When was that?’

‘Nineteen sixty-seven.’

As they reached the East Cloister he held the door open for her while he stamped the snow off his shoes and said. ‘Do you have a moment?’

She gave a friendly, open shrug.

‘I want to show you something in my office.’ He led the way along a corridor lined with portraits of philosophers and statues of scientists and engineers, the leather soles of his shoes echoing dully on the marble floor. She padded after him noiselessly, as if velvetfooted. When they reached his office door he checked his watch again – still had a few minutes before his meeting was due to start – and tapped in four digits on a security keypad on the wall. The heavy door clicked open. ‘Come in, come in.’

Wetherby took off his fedora to reveal a domed head barely covered by a tonsure of side-parted hair. He removed his coat and shook it before hanging it up behind his door. Next came his leather gloves, peeled off one finger at a time. Steady,Wetherby. Not too Gothic. Might frighten her. He smoothed down the hairs at the side of his head and checked his reflection in his glass-fronted bookcase. Not handsome in an obvious way, but distinguished. A donnish look which bluestockings found attractive. Grrr. ‘How is your mid-term paper coming along?’ he said.

‘Getting there.’ She shrugged again, yawned and shivered.

As Wetherby looked through his drawer for an old poppy he kept in there, Hai-iki wound up the metronome on his baby grand piano and set it ticking. She ran a finger over a spindly crucifix on the wall, felt the weight of a rosary hanging from it and trailed her finger along an open shelf of books, playing the leather spines as if they were piano keys.

Wetherby slipped the poppy into his lapel and looked up, a
question on his face. ‘There is a project I am working on. I need a research assistant. Are you interested?’

Hai-iki cocked her head again. ‘Why me?’

Wetherby hesitated for a beat before answering. ‘Because you listen to the Third Programme.’

‘I do think they play too much jazz though.’

‘Any jazz is too much jazz.’

‘And I’m not keen on the world music.’

Wetherby mimed sticking a finger down his throat.

The student smiled at this. ‘I have to listen to Radio 3.’ She patted her pockets. ‘Can’t afford the Royal Opera House.’

‘You have never been?’

‘Never.’

‘Then you must go, you must.’ Wetherby was sorting through papers on his desk again. ‘I have a spare ticket for Covent Garden on Tuesday night.’ He said this nonchalantly, without looking up.

‘What is it?’

‘
La Bohème
.’

She had heard a rumour about how the professor always seduced his students with Puccini. ‘I find Puccini too saccharine,’ she said.

‘As do I,’ he said. ‘As does everyone, that is why I have a spare ticket. I will make it up to you afterwards with dinner at my club.’

‘Your club?’

‘The Athenaeum. We can leave the opera at the first interval and be there by nine.’ He checked his reflection again. He was wearing a three-piece suit made from prickly, thorn-proof tweed and it had four buttons on its cuff, two of which had come open. He fastened them and ran a finger under his collar before adjusting the stud under his tie.

Hai-iki said, ‘Can I think about it?’

‘Of course, of course.’

The student scratched an itch on her wrist. ‘What was it you wanted to show me?’

‘I must swear you to secrecy first.’

The student blinked. ‘Sure. Whatever.’

‘Swear. Not a word to anyone.’

‘I swear.’

Wetherby handed her a pair of latex gloves. ‘Put these on.’ She looked at him suspiciously. Did as he asked.

He handed her a pair of tweezers and a yellowing letter in a plastic folder. She held it at an angle so that the light from the window wasn’t reflecting on it.

‘You can take it out.’

‘I can see it clearly enough. German?’

‘You speak it, do you not?’

‘Enough to get by.’

‘That was the other reason for asking you. There are some archives in Berlin …’

Hai-iki turned the letter over and saw the signature at the end. ‘Gustav?’